From Newsgroup: alt.usage.english

kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) writes:

Peter Moylan <peter@pmoylan.org> wrote:

But miracles were very common back then. Now, a miracle can happen only
if no trained observers are present.

Miracles happen every day. It's tomato season.

So it is. The unidentified disease that's been trashing my tomatoes
just after the first round of green tomatoes is ready to ripen has
reappeared but is very slow to get traction this year, green tomatoes
are abundant on robust plants and we may have the first year of great
tomato harvest in a decade. But that's not a miracle.

Here's a yarn.

Over 50 years ago we'd spent a year, lots of time, considerable cash,
difficult winter travel, tedious correspondence with government
agencies, purchasing real estate etc. in preparation for a major life
change.

I was driving an old VW microbus from friends' house in the boonies to
where we were crashing in anticipation of the big changes. When I
arrived "home" where we were crashing, I found that a sizable
bundle of documents -- everything needed to complete the upcoming
major changes -- was missing. I immediately realized that when, on a
long steep upgrade 20 or so miles away, I had opened a rattling door
and slammed it tight, the bundle must have fallen out.

So of course I set off in a panic, despite winter roads, to try to
recover the bundle. It began to snow again.

Arrived at the top of the right hill without incident, creeping down
the grade in the falling snow, I spotted a snow-covered lump
in the road. Stopped, brushed off the snow, recovered the document
bundle intact and unharmed as the fresh snow was very dry and cold.

Made a U-turn and encountered the county snow plough coming down the
grade in the lane where the bundle had been lying.

If I'd been 3 or 4 minutes later in reaching the recovery spot, I
would have been following the plough down the grade, our documents
would have been ploughed into the roadside snow bank and lost forever,
a year's planning and efforts lost. As it was, everything proceded
flawlessly, the major changes were accomplished by April and here we
are still.

It's probably an indicator of my successful recovery from my
upbringing that I didn't immediately think of this happy occasion as a supernatural miracle. But in the vernacular usage, it was quite
miraculous.
--
Mike Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada
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