I was only halfway though my ding dong when suddenly we were on the side of the road. Dad was in warrior mode tying tourniquets around the mans legs. There was nothing else either direction, just us, the motorcycle and the man.

Whenever we went on our ghetto family vacations, usually to a podunk town a few hours away to stay in a rundown hotel and ride go-carts, we would all get a ding dong during the ride!! We would all pretend to eat ours and brag when we had won the game of having some left when everyone else had already finished, but usually the game wasn’t actually over until many tricks had been played in the back seats of our station wagon.

I don’t remember where we were going and it’s one of my first memories so I imagine I was 4 or so. The man was spewing blood from both of his legs, the lower parts were hard to understand. He had run into the back of a semi and was thrown far from his bike. The semi went on, not knowing, or at least that’s what was concluded.

The man was in his early 20’s and was traveling to propose to his girlfriend in another town somewhere in Eastern Washington. It was too long before a trucker came along with a CB radio. The young man lost his legs, but my dad did save his life.

Dad.