? watching over me!

MY guardian angel seems to be real....

I said once in this blog that sometime after a a belt of brandy and couple of glasses of good wine...I might come clean in some things that need to be said.

This isn’t it...although the booze has reinforced my nerve to deal with something troubling....to present it to you in these 75  countries to see what you think about it.

I’ve told no one about this... but I could have had... what would have amounted to... a tragic accident but it didn’t happen and I don’t know why.

About a year ago...I was driving to the post office and came to a stop at the fairly busy roadway.  I started up and began to cross that road when suddenly from nowhere an SUV was feet from me..headed straight for my driver’s door.  I don’t know how...but I swerved to the right to avoid what I was sure was a bad accident...also there was a canal across the roadway that could have been where I ended up.  That often happens down here in South Florida...especially with teen drivers.

He didn’t hit me...and I pushed the gas to get out of his way as I swerved the car.

I parked in the post office lot...shaken...and just sat there wondering how that had happened...how I could have avoided the crash.  I never saw the SUV again.  My guardian angel?

This past year writing this blog and telling you about Cambodia...I’ve been thinking of my experiences there. 

As I say this that lots of press people were killed or just blowed up by hidden land mines in the weeks and months after I left.  I lost some wonderful co-workers for NBC news.  I probably lost my driver, a fine young man, who would have been driving the press guys around...after I departed.

We passed the NVA enemy soldiers walking along our highway...and he joked, "just tell them you’re Canadian.” We passed a Khmer Rouge member as we entered a small store on our return to Phnom Penh.  He could have done something bad as well.  He looked like he wanted too.  And...luckly...there were no enemy solders in the small store.  

I keep wondering about that.  Just one would have been all for me!  I would be a goner.

...and then there’s the strange case of the beautiful, very beautiful Cambodian girl just passing the entrance to my hotel...who appeared like a vision and after the night together...when I was alerted by the Newsweek guy about the coup and had to leave...she just disappeared as if a vision gone who had never actually ben real.

Another strange happening.

There have been other minor incidents...that I can attribute to my guardian angel as more humorous rather than serious.

I am not a very religious person...I was raised a Methodist...my Mother’s church...and became a Catholic for my first marriage...but that didn’t take.  I've done things in my life that would be undeserving of any consideration of any celestial body.  And yet I escaped Cambodia when others didn't.  I have no explanation.

So...I don’t know...but I don’t complain.  I just roll with the punches like everyone else but I’ll always wonder why the things that happened, happened as they did.

and so far..nothing really tragic has happened to me.  time will tell.

my email (for your thoughts)

stanmajor@aol.com