View from the North 40: Goodbye Brock Creek Road, farewell Garrison Junction

Some moments, those profound life moments, come at you like a truck wreck in the making, in slow motion, from a few miles out.

You always knew that the road would be slick ahead, but you thought it wouldn’t happen for many miles. You thought maybe, when you got there, you’d spin out a bit or take out a reflector or dent a guardrail or some equivalent mishap. But you assumed you would drive away from the crisis relatively unscathed, maybe have to fill out an accident report, file a claim, but definitely keep rolling.

Then out of nowhere a semitractor-trailer is jack-knifed across the roadway an...