The broken mirror on Arthur Cox's pickup, shattered by the impact with my shoulder and head.

By any reasonable measurement, I should be dead.  A few centimeters made the difference between sitting here writing this account of today’s near-death experience and a story in Thursday’s Roanoke Times that could have read:

A head-on collision between a pickup and a motorcycle left a 64-year-old Floyd County man dead Wednesday.

Police say Douglas Thompson Jr. of Floyd died after his Harley-Davidson Super Glide slammed into a Chevy Silverado slammed into Dublin businessman Arthur Cox’s Chevy Silverado on Meadow Creek Road near Riner shortly after noon.

Meadow Creek Road.  That rural highway has too many bad memories for Floyd Countians.  Robert Pauley died after his motorcycle struck a dear in the post-midnight hours of Oct. 3, 2007.  The twisty two-lane road that runs from Rte. 8 just north of Riner to Tyler Road near Carilion New River Valley Medical Center has claimed too many lives.

I take that road nearly every day on visits to my mother at her assisted living facility.  At approximately 12:05 p.m. today I leaned the Harley into a sweeping left-hander just as the Silverado came around the curve well over the center line, right in my path.

Instinct and adrenaline took over and I veered sharply to the right.  The Silverado, however, continued to encroach further and further into my lane.  The veer saved my life as I avoided a head-on crash by centimeters, but the trailing edge of the clutch lever on the left handlebar of the Harley caught the edge of the truck’s front fender, gouging a groove that ran from the signal lamp halfway to the driver’s side door.

The impact drove the clutch level down onto my hand that on the left handlebar grip as my head and shoulder slammed into the driver’s side outside mirror of the pickup, shattering both it and the side of my helmet. Pain shot through my shoulder but — somehow — I managed to keep the bike veering to the right and did not lose control.

The Harley, staggered by the impact, wobbled towards the edge of the turn but I managed to avoid going off the road and brought the bike back under control, made it through the left-hander and stopped about 100 yards or so down the road.

Cox, as too many drivers who cause an accident do, could have fled the scene.  He didn’t.  He doubled back and found me still sitting on the bike.

“Are you OK?  Are you hurt?”

“I’m not sure.  You do realize you were on my side of the road.”

“Yes. I’m sorry. It was my fault.”

I got off the bike as Cox called 911.  I inspected the bike, expecting to find major damage but only the left-side mirror was bent along with the clutch lever and housing on the handlebars.

“They want to know if you need the rescue squad,” Cox said while on the phone with 911.

“No,” I responded.  My shoulder and left arm throbbed but nothing seemed broken.  I could move my arm and feel my fingers, which ached.  I took off my riding gloves and found some scrapes on my fingers.  Leather from the the glove lined the inside of the clutch lever.

The Cardo Rider intercom transmitter on the left side of my helmet dangled from a wire and part of the lower side of the helmet was missing.  The helmet did its job.  My face was scratched and a welt appeared on my left cheek.  My shoulder and left arm ached but my leather riding jacket did its job as well, cushioning the force of the impact.

Cox appeared visibly shaken.

“I don’t believe you didn’t go down,” he said. “How did you stay upright on the bike?”

“I have no idea.”

Deputy B. K. Davis from the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office arrived on the scene.  Cox immediately admitted fault.  He took statements, examined our paperwork, and ticketed Cox for the accident.

“You were lucky,” he said. “Make sure to have that shoulder checked out.  Are you OK to ride?”

“Yes,” I said.  Cox and I exchanged insurance information and I climbed on the Harley and continued the trip to visit my mother.  She was asleep when I arrived so I kissed her on the forehead, asked the nurses to tell her I was there and stopped off at the clinic for a medical exam.  They found soft tissue damage in my left shoulder and arm, abrasions on my cheek and fingers but no broken bones or apparent head trauma.

“Expect to be sore in the morning,”  the doctor said.  “You are a very lucky man. If I were you’d I’d buy a lottery ticket tonight.”

On the way home, I bought a Powerball ticket at Floyd Express Mart.

I didn’t win the lottery.  Didn’t even come close but I didn’t need a win at Powerball. I had all the luck I needed on Meadow Creek Road at 12:05 p.m. on Wednesday, May 16, 2012.

A crease on the fender caused by the clutch lever on my motorcycle.

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Amy was an accomplished actress when we met in the 1970s and worked for a while as the resident heroine on The Goldenrod Showboat on the Mississippi River in front of the St. Louis Gateway Arch.

In fact, it was her experience as a heroine that led the Alton Little Theater company to bring her in as the resident professional for a summer melodrama production in 1977. They asked me to play the villain and the rest is history.

Also a part of history is the Goldenrod, which has fallen on hard times in recent years.

The video above is a short history of The Goldenrod that I found on YouTube.

The song, “Thunder Road,” is sung by the late, great tough-guy actor actor Robert Mitchum, who starred in the movie of the same name.

For fans of singer and former coffee diva Sally Walker, here’s a re-edit of some video shot of her during a performance at Oak Grove Pavilion in 2006.

Damn, I miss Cafe del Sol.

Wanna save America?  Here’s how.

Our favorite hamburger joint in the early days in Northern Virginia.

In 1986, while living in Arlington and working out of Washington, DC, we tried a new burger joint that had just opened in a run-down strip mall at the intersection of Glebe Road and Columbia Pike, not far from the Pentagon.

That burger joint, started by a husband and wife with four sons, was called Five Guys.

Five Guys sold burgers and fries based on a simple formula: Cooked from scratch food served quickly.  The tasty burgers and boardwalk-style fries.

We loved simple food places with fare served at reasonable prices:  Bob & Edith’s Diner on Columbia Pike, Hard Times Cafe — a chili parlor — in Alexandria, Whiteys on Washington Boulevard and — after just one visit — Five Guys.

From 1986 until we left Arlington in 2004, Five Guys expanded throughout Northern Virginia.  When I commuted from Arlington to Floyd in 2004, I could stop at a Five Guys in Woodstock for a bacon burger fix and a cup of fries or visit the Five Guys in Blacksburg near the Tech campus. Another opened on West Main in Salem but closed last year.

Now you can find Five Guys around the country at more than 500 locations.  It’s a franchise but the food is still fresh and the menu simple:  Burgers, fries, hot dogs and a veggie sandwich.  Nothing fancy, just good food.

We mourned the demise of the Five Guys  in Salem but Amada Codispoti at The Roanoke Times brought good news this week with the announcement that Five Guys will open new spots in the area: One at Tanglewood Mall in Roanoke and an even closer location at Spradlin Farms in Christiansburg.

Ah, heaven — thy name is burgers and fries from Five Guys.

Shot the first two images while on assignment in Paris in 1987.  The third was in the National Mall in Washington in 2000. Lovers can be found everywhere.  The Paris scanned from slides shot with a Nikon F2.  The DC photo was a digital image shot with a Nikon D1.

Hikers on Blue Ridge Parkway near Rocky Knob.

Sunset. Poor Farm Road. Floyd County, VA.  Photo shot on Droid X smartphone.

Had to search high and low late Saturday night and early Sunday for clear sky but finally caught the Super Moon in a couple of places in Floyd County.  The photo above was shot Saturday night along Buffalo Mountain Road in the southern part of the county.  The shot below was in the early morning hours Sunday as the moon set on U.S. 221 south of Willis.  Both photos were enhanced in Photoshop.