By Charlie Warner
Argus News Editor
Have you ever noticed something, possibly by accident, that you suddenly realized had the potential to be a very serious accident just waiting to happen?

It happened to me last week, as I was motoring to the Caledonia Area High School/Middle School to take photos of the student and athlete of the week. As I pulled up to the stop sign on Highways 44 and 76, I heard a "thump." After letting the highway traffic pass and stepping on the accelerator, I heard the thump again. I figured my daughter or wife must have put something in the back compartment of our SUV, and it was rolling around.

When I parked in the school lot, I heard the thump again. But when I opened up the back hatch, the cargo area was empty. "What's causing this noise?" I wondered. I reached down below the bumper and checked the spare tire, thinking that might have worked its way loose. But no, the spare tire was tightly secured.

I took the photos and drove my black Jimmy back to the office. I heard the thump each time I pulled up to a stop sign, and every time I pulled away. The mystery of the thumping noise was starting to bother me.

As I pulled to a stop in the Argus parking lot, I heard the thump again. I was bound and determined to find its origin. Suddenly, the light came on. No, not the dome light in the Jimmy, the dome light in my head.

I had washed the sludge and road salt off the Jimmy several times since the big snowstorm we had endured earlier in the month. But each time I washed the truck, I looked at the large, thick glacier stuck to the roof, lodged in the luggage rack. The massive piece of ice was nearly three inches thick, and probably measured four feet by six feet. I had attempted to remove it while washing the truck, but decided it would probably take three or four dollars worth of quarters to thaw it enough to remove it. Could this be the source of the thumping?

Sure enough, when I got out and checked the top of my truck, is was the large mass of ice. The warm weather we had last week had loosened the "luggage glacier" from the truck roof and it was sliding ever so slightly back and forth as I motored around Caledonia.

I climbed up on the back bumper and began pounding on the sheet of ice. I was able to break it up enough to lift it over the luggage rack. Some of the pieces were larger than a platter. Several chunks measured more than two feet by two feet. As I was removing this frozen H-2-0 from my truck roof, all I could think about was "what if I hadn't noticed this, it melted enough to where the luggage rack wouldn't have held it in check, and it blew off and caused an accident and injured someone? Or worse, killed someone?"

I felt compelled to tell others about this dangerous situation, but where or how? But after receiving a letter to the editor from someone whose wife had a large piece of ice shatter her windshield right here in Caledonia, I decided to alert others through my column.

Please read the letter to the editor that appears on this page, from Joseph Kessler of Minneapolis. Just four days after I removed the potentially deadly ice sheet from my truck, his wife Lisa Myhre had a three foot by three foot piece of ice come crashing through her windshield on Highways 44 and 76 just south of town.

Until I noticed the luggage glacier on my truck, I wouldn't have ever thought something like that could pose a problem or be a safety issue. And to have something like this happen right here, on the same highway I was driving on just four days later is more than a coincidence.

If there was ever a column I penned that I felt just might prevent an accident, or save a life, it's this one. Please pass this one to others.

And have a safe and happy New Year!

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Caledonia Argus
314 West Lincoln St.
P.O. Box 227
Caledonia, MN 55921-0227
507/724-3475

E-Mail: editor.argus@ecm-inc.com