The wheelchair stopped abruptly when I pushed it into a rut at the side of the road, and my friend went flying into the crosswalk. At that instant, I could see myself horribly branded for life: The Man Who Killed Phil Womble. I scooped him out of the path of an approaching car, settled him back in the chair, and came to my senses. The toughest man I’ve ever known would not be undone by a few scrapes.
He had survived a worse accident, when a semi-truck plowed into the Gauchomobile, the powered scooter he drove between Santa Barbara and Goleta. Recounting that incident in his autobiography, Phil wrote: “Even though I have physical challenges, I see myself as an average guy. The problems in my life are no bigger than anyone else’s; they are like rocks in the road — you get over them and move on.”
After he’d moved on from our little mishap, I picked up Phil to take him to a basketball game. When I slammed the car door, he shrieked loudly. Oh, no; his hand, I thought, until I saw that the bogus howl of pain had dissolved into laughter.