Accident

Wait; Cyndi Frame, vocals

In May of 2000, I accepted an invitation to cover for an organist friend of mine at her Sunday morning worship service while she and her husband stepped out of town for a week. I had played there before, but I needed some time at the instrument to remember which buttons played loud and which ones played louder. So, Nelson and I left at quarter past six in the blessed AM to make sure I got to the church in plenty of time.

At around seven o’clock, I got to the Woodrow Wilson Bridge at the bottom of the Capital Beltway that spans from Maryland into Virginia. A section of the bridge closer to the Virginia side supports a draw mechanism. In my few years driving across this bridge, I had seldom seen the drawbridge up. On this morning, it was up. But from my vantage point, I could see that it was coming down. I carefully pulled up behind the car in front of me, and ten seconds later …

WHAM!!!

Nelson got hit from behind. But the car behind me didn’t cause the accident. It was the car behind that one. And I hit the car in front of me. The young woman in the car in front of me seemed a little shaken but relatively okay. The folks in the car behind me, on the other hand, probably didn’t need this to happen to them on this day. It appeared to me that they had nearly everything that they owned in the vehicle with them; including five dogs.

The first thing we did, while someone called for emergency help, was round up the dogs and put leashes on them. The woman in that car wasn’t in great shape. And her husband had a head wound. My job, as the only victim not to get hurt, was to hold onto the leashes of the five dogs.

The emergency teams came and began to care for the other people. I continued to hold charge over the five dogs. As it turned out, the woman in the car ahead of me suffered a little more personal damage than she initially let on. In the end, I was the only person involved in the accident that didn’t get taken away in a helicopter. And after they left, I was still hanging on to the leashes of the five dogs.

All of the dogs behaved admirably throughout the ordeal. One of the dogs was a rottweiler and, like the others, she sat quietly. After a while, though, she started to become unresponsive. I called someone from the emergency team over to check her out, and after doing a quick once over, she said that the poor dog was going into shock and that I should hand over the leash. I didn’t see where they took her.

About that time, a tow-truck had arrived to take Nelson to a lot until someone could get him on Monday. Someone had taken over responsibility of the other dogs and I fished around the inside of my truck for my cell phone to call the church. “Hello.” Yes, I’m your organist this morning. I’ve been involved in an accident on the beltway. “You’re part of that mess?” Yes, I’m afraid so. I can’t drive to your church because my vehicle is damaged, but if someone will come and pick me up, I’ll still play for your church service. “We’re sending someone right now.” All told, the traffic on the bridge was held up for an hour and a half.

We made it to the service with three minutes to spare, with one minute spent on the applause upon my entrance. Some portions of the service were loud when they should have been louder, and vice versa, but, really, those moments only solicited friendly expressions of “Oops. Oh, well. We’re thankful you made it.”

Three weeks later, I got a call from a guitar player friend, K.A. who asked me if I could play piano at a church service in Fairfax, Virginia. Yup. “Drive over to my place on Sunday morning, and I’ll drive the rest of the way, okay?” Okay.

He nervously listened to traffic news along the way. “Normally I wouldn’t be so jumpy about traffic, but three weeks ago, I got stuck on the Wilson Bridge for an hour and a half because of an accident and I missed the first worship service.” Really? Let me tell you a funny story …

The worship leader that morning, a very fine singer named Cyndi Frame, approached me after the second worship service of the morning to inform me that she was in the middle of a recording project. She had two original songs that she wanted on her CD. She had intended to play the piano part herself. But she liked the way I played that morning. “Do you have time to come out to the recording studio and lay down a couple piano tracks?” Yes, ma’am.

This was my very first recording session and I was very excited. She paid me a little money after we finished. But I value the CD a whole lot more, beecause, like so many others, it sits on my iPod and tells a story.

Credits: To my Mom, and mothers everywhere, natural, adoptive and spiritual. Thank you for the meals, the hugs, the kisses, the band-aids, the worrying, the concern, the care and the love. D., K. and I love you, Mom.