We Are Superhuman

While busying herself in her kitchen, 57-year-old Angela Cavollo, a suburban housewife, heard a commotion in her garage. She ran outside to find her son pinned beneath a 3000-pound car. She lifted that car with her bare hands, and held it up until three neighborhood youths, responding to her cries, ran into the garage and pulled her son to safety. They call that "hysterical strength."

In 1973, while mowing the grass at High Rollaway Park for the Newaygo County Road Commission, the 786-pound tractor I rode tipped over, and proceeded to land on top of me. Before it could drive me into the ground, I had already planted my feet into the floorboards. At the instant of contact with the Earth - with a singular motion - I extended my limbs, hoisted the machine, and tossed it over my head.  

I do not compare myself to Mrs. Cavollo, who held that 3000-pound car aloft for a full five minutes while she waited for help to come. No. Like it was a red-hot stove, I let that Wheel-horse tractor go the moment I wrenched it away from me. 

These things happen, folks; usually they don't. Most often, people simply die. Wish for such an extraordinary moment - yearn for a supernatural experience - and you will probably, most certainly, die. 

I fancy, it is the electricity of the moment that saves us from tragedy. In a microsecond, shock releases the "Kraken" - that superhuman spirit that exists in us all. It is like a secret we either have never been told about, or if told, we would no sooner believe in than we would believe in Peter Pan.