By Charlie Warner
Argus News Editor
The old myth that cats have nine lives seems to pertain to some people as well. Iíve heard and read about various incidents where people have survived accidents, falls, and other life-threatening experiences. "Must have nine lives," is usually my response.

Thinking back to some of my exploits during an earlier and more adventurous time in my life, I must have nine lives as well.

One of my good friends from college majored in industrial education. For one of his projects in college Tony built a very sturdy tilt-bed two-wheeled trailer. When Tony completed his college degree and got a teaching job near the Twin Cities, he moved into an apartment on Lake Street. He didnít have any place to keep the trailer and, since I was living on a hobby farm near Hastings, Tony asked if he could keep his trailer at my farm.

Of course he could leave it there, and of course I used it to haul wood. I think I loaded it down with too much red oak one fall day. The locking mechanism for the tilt bed never worked properly after that.

Another college buddy of mine had been living in St. Paul, but decided to move closer to work, and found an apartment in south Minneapolis. He called to let me know that he was moving, and since I had a pickup AND Tonyís trailer, I was invited to a moving party for Rick. Rick had four younger brothers with strong backs, plus three or four college buddies living near the Cities, so we figured we could get Rick moved in one massive convoy and then have a cookout at his new place.

Tonyís trailer had a two-inch ball hitch. My truck had a 1 7/8 inch ball. This really never posed a problem for me since I only used Tonyís trailer to haul wood around my little farm. But how was this going to work traveling all the way to St. Paul (20 miles from my farm), and then loaded with furniture from St. Paul to Minneapolis? Necessity is the mother of invention. I needed to help my buddy, so I tightened the trailer down onto the hitch the best I could and found several rubber tie down straps. I wrapped the straps around the truck bumper and the hitch as tightly as I could, tugged at the hitch, which felt very secure, and deemed it safe. I hooked up the lights and was ready to head north.

We were able to get all of Rickís worldly possessions into the three pickups and the trailer and headed west toward Minneapolis. One of Rickís younger brothers rode with me. We motored through downtown St. Paul on this Sunday morning, with little or no traffic bothering us. Suddenly I heard a bang and a scraping sound. I looked in my rear view mirror and saw that the tilt-bed trailer was tilting and the back end was dragging on the pavement. Tommy and I were in the last vehicle of the convoy. We pulled off to the side of the road to investigate.

We discovered that the lock on the tilt bed was broken. We decided to pile as much furniture as we could to the front of the trailer to keep the trailer from tilting back. I finally decided to hop into the front of the trailer, providing enough weight to keep it from tilting back and off we went.

We headed south on Snelling and then started crossing the Mississippi River on the Ford Parkway Bridge. I was having a good time waving to people as the cars passed us. I told Tommy we better not go much more than 50 miles an hour, so we stayed in the right lane and let the traffic go speeding by. There must have been some nasty potholes in the road and when we hit them the trailer lurched forward, then backward. Then I heard a bang. The tie down straps had let loose. The hitch had slipped off the ball. The safety chain must have been just for decoration, because that let loose, too.

Suddenly I was speeding across the Ford Parkway Bridge in a two-wheeled -trailer, tipped back and completely detached from the vehicle. Tommy didnít notice anything had happened. I did, and started screaming as the trailer went bouncing across the bridge with the Mississippi 100 feet below me. Some of the drivers in the other vehicles must have noticed my predicament. I heard horns and screeching tires. There wasnít much I could do but hang on for dear life and hope Iíd slow down before I ran into a vehicle or worse yet, went for a swim in the river.

The trailer hit one more large pothole. The impact caused the trailer to make a sudden turn to the right back into the slow lane. The right tire hit the curb, causing the trailer to head straight for the sidewalk and guardrail. The left tire hit the curb at the same time the tongue made contact with the concrete guardrail. The trailer, Rickís furniture and I all came to a sudden stop on the sidewalk, against the guardrail, overlooking the Mississippi River 100 feet below.

Tommy had noticed the free-wheeling trailer, but he really couldnít stop on the middle of the six-lane bridge. So he motored across, turned around, crossed the river in the east lane, turned around a second time and pulled up behind me with my truck. My pulse rate was finally coming back down to double digits. As soon as Tommy saw I wasnít hurt and none of Rickís belongings were damaged, he started laughing. I started laughing as well. It felt good to laugh. It felt good to do just about anything. For about 30 seconds, I didnít know if I was ever going to do anything again.

We got the trailer hooked back up, rearranged the furniture and I drove very slowly to Rickís new apartment. As we told the group about my little ride in the trailer, everyone howled with laughter. Then Rick pulled out a black magic marker. On the tongue of the trailer Tony had printed "Made by T. Mertes, 1977" back when he had built it. Next to that Rick wrote "Destroyed by C. Warner, 1980."

Some people do have nine livesÖand Iím glad Iím one of them.

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