I Was the Man in the Tractor-Trailer

When I was in the tenth grade, I had an experience that has stayed with me into adulthood as a reminder of my duty. After high school classes were over one weekday in Cashmere–a small town in Washington State, I jumped into my little green car and started tailing my friend Jeff as he was leaving the parking lot. When he turned left, I turned left, and when he turned right, I turned right. After a short distance, he exited off the highway to head up Nahom Canyon and I continued to follow him. Jeff started driving faster and faster and I followed matching his speed. Soon I realized that we were racing up the canyon at dangerous speeds! We were not swerving in and out of lanes as one normally would do, instead our tires would hit from the bank on the left side to the bank on the right side trying to keep as straight a line as possible to increase our driving speed. Going about 50-60 miles an hour up the canyon was a lot of fun until we zipped around a corner and came face-to-face with a tractor-trailer blocking the entire road.

Jeff slammed on his brakes, and I followed, locking my brakes causing my car to skid and come to a screeching halt. Fortunately, my car stopped about a foot from Jeff’s car avoiding accident or injury. We both got out of our cars to survey the scene and we watched as the driver of the tractor-trailer backed up and tried to make the right hand turn in the small canyon road. It took him many tries, jackknifing the rig many times before he could position the vehicle properly finally make the turn.

I was happy no harm or injury had happened, and I drove back home slowly and didn’t think anything more about this experience.

On the following Sunday, I was playing the piano for priesthood (this was my church calling as a teenager). I felt a heavy hand plummet down on my shoulder—I looked up and I saw that it was Brother Don Potter. Brother Potter was a big man with big hands, he was a construction worker, and his heavy hand really startled me. He said, “Do you remember where you were at such and such a date and such and such a time?”

I said, “No I don’t.”

He said, “Let me refresh your memory. You were driving up Nahom canyon at a rapid speed and you came around a bend in the road when you saw a tractor-trailer and you slammed on your brakes nearly causing a bad accident. Do you remember this?

Sheepishly I said, “Yes.”

He replied, “I was the man in the tractor-trailer.”

He was silent for a moment as my heart sank into immediate and paralyzing fear. He knew something that I didn’t think anyone in the world knew about! Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of silence, he leaned over to me and said, “It’s OK, I won’t tell your Dad, but I just thought that you should know.” At that moment, I went from fear to relief! This experience would be one that I would never forget as long as I lived.

This was a great lesson to me and helped me prepare for the future. I was doing something that I thought no one would ever know about. What were the odds that someone would seen me? I believe that God protected me that day, but he also gave me a reminder of my duty and awakened me to the danger in following the wrong people. I learned that I could not afford to make bad choices, and that Heavenly Father had messengers seen and unseen to help me stay on the straight and narrow path.

This experience taught me the importance of remembering who I am and not following the path of people who do not have your best interests in mind. Following the wrong people could lead me into a pitfall that would stop me from achieving the plan Heavenly Father had intended for me to follow in this world.

Todd Alan Morgan