THE POLE THAT HIT ME

by Danna Shirley

            You’ve heard the one about the drunk who tells the officer, “I swear. The pole jumped out and hit my car!” Well, that literally happened to me.

            My husband was still experiencing those dreaded headaches and was admitted back into the hospital at Subic Bay. The children and I would visit him every day, driving the winding road up to the Naval Hospital which sat atop a hill looking out over Cubi Point. One especially clear, beautiful, sunny, not-a-breeze-blowing kind of day, I was again on this winding road when all of a sudden something hit the roof of my car. I stopped dead. I was the only car on the road. What had hit me? There was broken glass all over the inside of the car, all over my newborn baby and my little girl. I stepped out to see a power pole lying on the side of the road. This was the last straw. I couldn’t take any more! I stood there and cried!

            A man drove up behind me and asked accusingly, “Why did you hit that pole?” 

          “I didn’t hit that pole,” I said defensively, “that pole hit me!” The damage was to the roof of my car, not to the front or hood. Why would he ask such a question? He continued up to the hospital to get help. People came running down the road all believing that I had hit that pole. Some kind soul put us in his car and drove up to the front door of the hospital where Ron was waiting in bathrobe and slippers. A nurse took Russ to clean off the glass and examine him.

We later learned that the power pole had been planted seven years earlier and had withstood seven monsoon seasons. The tension on the wires had loosened it and eased it out of the ground ever so slightly until the day when I drove by so it could catapult itself to the top of my car.

            At this point the Navy decided that it was time the Shirley family went home to the states. We left all of our household goods and car behind to be sent on to us later. The car windows had to be replaced with safety glass before shipping (a U.S. requirement) and finding the right glass in the Philippines was a chore in itself. Our two-year tour of duty had lasted only seven months and that was long enough for me. Ron eventually received a medical separation and an honorable discharge from the Navy. His headaches eventually ceased, but that’s another story.

When I tell of the time a pole jumped out and hit my car, people have a hard time believing me, but I’ve got the pictures to prove it!