Two weeks ago, I did Phase One of preparing for winter.

I brought the snow thrower up from the barn and into the garage, where it is handy for clearing the garage pad and the 300-foot driveway. To make space, I took the walk-behind power mower down to the barn.

Some folks drain gas tanks when storing mowers, trimmers and the like. Others fill gas tanks nearly to the brim with fresh gasoline enriched with fuel stabilizer.

I use the second method. I sometimes want to use a mower or a trimmer during thaws in wintertime, so I want to have ready to use.

Deploying snow shovels requires no decision-making. Beside the back porch is a half-moon aluminum scraper shovel. Inside the garage is a bent-handled aluminum shovel. On the front porch is a more ergonomic aluminum shovel. It has a conventional D-grip handle on its end. Then, halfway down its bent ergonomic shaft there is a 14-inch grip handle ending in another D-ring. The two handles give me added leverage for tossing wet snow with less strain on my age-weakened back.

Beside the front porch shovel, I place an old-style coal shovel. Its scalloped bucket and sharp steel blade edge clear wet, icy bottom layers of crusted snow.

That is Phase One of my winter prep routine.

Phase Two will happen as soon as we have a half-inch or more of true white snow on a weekend or weekday evening.

I will drive the pickup truck or the all-wheel-drive “beater” Subaru to an empty parking lot, sometimes at a school or church.

I then repeat what I was taught in 1959 at age 16, when the late, great teacher-coach Joe “The Duke” Massa gave me behind-the-wheel driver education instruction up in Warren. I chuckle as I recall Duke’s colorful punctuation, which he inflicted with a rolled-up newspaper and a wide grin.

As he suggested, I accelerate to 25-30 mph, then slam the brakes, trying to cause a skid. These days, antilock brakes and four-wheel/all-wheel drives make it harder to seriously skid. But if I work at it, I can still send my rear wheels sliding sideways, then work with the steering wheel and the accelerator (never the brake pedal) to regain straight-ahead driving.

I remember arguing with Duke about not using the brake.

“What if there is a bridge abutment right ahead?” I would ask.

His grin would get wider. He would deliver another newspaper whap.

“Then, you sausage — you’ll be dead!” he would shout, making his point that brakes worsen skids while accelerating might or might not straighten out a sliding vehicle.

He used humor to teach us that driving is a deadly serious business fraught with risk, moreso in winter. Accidents can be avoided … perhaps. But nothing is certain.

Duke knew. He survived a horrific crash that left him injured and his wife dead during my teenage years.

Either before or after I do my parking-lot skids, I find a fairly safe spot on our rural blacktopped road, one with a sharp drop-off to the berm and a straightaway just ahead.

This past summer, a patch-paving crew from PennDOT left our road plastered with what looks like those iron-on patches we steamed onto our worn jeans, before it became fashionable for jeans to look as shredded as though they had been worn during prison breaks, climbing over barbed wire.

I force myself to drop the vehicle off the berm, hanging onto the steering wheel to prevent it from swinging hard right, but resisting the urge to pull it left.

I let both right-side wheels drop off, then coast or brake to a safe speed. I check ahead and through my rear-view mirror. If the paths ahead and behind are clear, I pull back onto the roadway. If not, I slowly stop until traffic is past.

If my hands are shaky or my steering was inept, I do it again, maybe three times.

I have been doing that now for 61 years, give or take a year or two.

I do it because, in early adulthood, police relied on newspaper folks to take the black-and-white photos they needed to investigate accidents. I saw many grim ones.

Time and again, two causes loomed large: Failure to recover from skids, and panicked oversteering after dropping off a berm.

Just knowing a physical skill is no guarantee of being able to execute it in a crisis. I still know, intellectually, how to scoop a two-hopper baseball, slide to my right, touch second base, then pivot to throw to first base to complete a double play. But if I try to do that at my age, I will break my body into pieces. I just can’t regain that level of athleticism.

Recovering from skids or getting off a dropped-off berm require instantaneous controlled response, overcoming the instinctive panic reaction to oversteer – and possibly die or kill someone else.

Things become different while driving once snow and ice are our daily driving companions. A bit of practice can shake the shadows off our winter driving skills, and remind us to slow down, leave more space between us and the car ahead, etc.

Corny?

No.

Life-saving?

Perhaps. And that life could be your own.

Denny Bonavita is a former editor at newspapers in DuBois and Warren. He lives near Brookville. Email: denny2319@windstream.net.