I’ve done things, odd things, for no particular reason I could fathom, that turned out to be exactly the right thing to do under the circumstances. But I couldn’t explain what made me do what I did. It’s a sort of sixth sense, I think, an inner voice we all have but struggle to hear clearly, like trying to pick a conversation out of a weak CB signal.

One cold February night in 1978 I was driving north on Ontario’s Hwy. 41 en route from Belleville to Pembroke. Somewhere north of Cloyne, I think, those voices shouted at me to stop the truck. I did, and a bloody good thing, too. I mightn’t be here otherwise.

Late that fateful night, the air was cold and crisp, perhaps 25 degrees below zero, with ice crystals twinkling in the moonlight. There was an inch of fresh snow on the ground and not a single tire track on the road. It had been 10 or 15 minutes since I had seen any sign of civilization, and there was nothing ahead of me for at least another 10 miles. Then, out of the darkness, my headlights picked up a woman walking south on the shoulder of the road. She was dressed in a pink ski jacket, black stirrup pants, and a fuzzy hat, all of a 1960s vintage, the kind of outfit you’d see on a ski bunny in an old Elvis movie.

She had a long walk ahead of her to get to the next town, and I concluded that her car had likely broken down somewhere further up the road. Why else would she be out on a dark highway in the dead of winter 10 miles from the nearest town? Why, indeed.

There were two of us in the truck that night — I had a helper — on a mission installing kiosks in shopping malls for a tax-prep outfit. As we passed the woman, both of us experienced the same reaction: the hair on the back of our necks stood up and some serious chills ran down our spines. Regardless, we decided to turn around, and offer her a lift back to town. We were in a 22-foot straight truck, so after a moment or two — and a 22-point turn — we were headed south again.

When we returned to where we’d first noticed the woman, there wasn’t a sign of her. Not even her footprints in the fresh-fallen snow. As we paused for a closer look, travelling at no more than 10 miles an hour, the dashboard erupted in a flash and a cloud of smoke. It sizzled and spat, then the engine quit and all the lights went out. We’d experienced some sort of electrical failure which shut down the engine, taking with it the power steering and power brakes. Reefing on the steering wheel, I managed to get the truck off to the side of the road to extinguish the fire and assess the damage.

It was just a short in the main bus from the battery to the electrical distribution panel. But here’s the freaky part: had I continued north on the highway from the point where my partner and I had seen the woman, I’d have been cresting the top of a tricky hill, which could have been disastrous if we’d have had to travel the grade with no brakes, no steering, and no headlights.

A similar situation occurred just five years before I stopped driving. On I-90 between Buffalo, N.Y., and Erie, Pa., I’d run into a series of snow squalls. After the first wall of snow, I cut the speed back and kept a close eye on the traffic in front of me, striving to maintain a safe distance behind anyone who might stop in front of me inside the next squall zone. The next two or three squalls were mild and short lived, with a visibility extending about 300 to 400 yards, and only lasting about two miles. The squall after that was different. I was in the left lane — there was snow drifting onto the pavement in the right lane — at 20 to 30 mph when my world turned solid white. Prior to hitting the squall, I’d seen nothing ahead of me for more than a mile in either lane when for no particular reason I yanked the wheel hard to the right, swerving into the next lane. I missed, by a matter of feet, a car that had stopped in the left lane amidst the dense blowing snow.

I hadn’t seen the car, yet something more than chance told me to change lanes right away. How or why it happened I couldn’t tell you, but I can say, today, I’m much more inclined to follow my instincts.

Those inner voices tell me when to speak up and when to shut up, who to talk to and who to avoid. And most of all, they seem to sense when I’m on the right track and when I’m not. I don’t hear actual voices, of course. It’s more of a feeling to do one thing when I might be naturally inclined to do another. You’ve likely heard those voices, too: try trusting them. Let them be your muse and learn to follow your heart instead of your head. But listen carefully, and listen closely; the other noises in our lives today have made those voices difficult to hear.