Psalm 91

A person once asked me, “Bomber, why do you believe in Jesus?” The short answer to that question that I told them was that was the only thing that made any sort of sense to me. The truth of the matter is I grew up with a set of parents who didn’t nurture me, nor nudge me in the right direction, so being left up to my own devices I pretty much had to figure life out on my own.
The long answer to that very same question is that I have made some pretty boneheaded decisions in my life that ultimately led to why I believe in God. One of those decisions that I had made occurred on February 14th, 1996.
That particular night an acquaintance of mine and I were out in the middle of the night breaking into some cars. It just so happened that we had came across a car that had the keys in the ignition, a 1991 Camaro RS. After noticing this, I looked over to my buddy and told him to get in the passenger seat as I slid in the driver’s seat and started the car. After putting it in drive, I slowly eased the car from the house before I turned the headlights on. Then I looked over to my friend and said, “Let’s see what this V8 has got.”
The Camaro took off quickly and before I knew it the needle to the speedometer was a little over 100 mph and still climbing. When I looked up from glancing at the speedometer I had realized little too late that the road had made a sharp turn as I entered someone’s driveway. Knowing all too well that there’s no way that I could stop in time with a car equipped with anti-lock brakes, so I did the next best thing that I could in that situation. A split second later we hit a solid brick wall that stood about three feet tall head on.
According to the tire impression tests that the cops did, they say that the car was traveling somewhere between 80-90 mph AFTER I yanked the emergency brake.
The impact was so great that we both were thrown forward simultaneously. I hit the steering wheel with my chest and bounced back, while Lucas hit the windshield with his face, causing him to bite a hole through his lebrae before he also bounced back into the seat. At the same both motor mounts in the chassis broke and gave away. Instead of pushing the motor through the firewall like it should have, the motor dropped to the ground and acted as a plow as it peeled its way through the backyard until the car finally came to a stop some 25 feet away.
When the cops found the car they couldn’t believe that anyone had walked away from such a crash, much less wearing a seat belt, yet we did.
Later, after we were both arrested I sat in the jail as I waited to go back to prison for the second time and wondered why God had spared my life.

Fast forwarding past the third time that I had gotten out of prison. I was finally at a point in my life in 2009 that I was finally making progress. During the week I worked as a commercial electrician on various projects all over. Some of those projects that I worked on include, Lynchburg General Hospital, Carillon Hospital in Radford, as well as Virginia Military Institute, Radford University, and I worked on Va. Tech numerous times. Most notably I worked on a building directly behind Norris Hall the day before a gunman took the lives of 32 people on April 16th, 2007.
Then on the weekends I worked as a server at Ryan’s Steakhouse, a buffet-styled restaurant in Christiansburg, Va. (That particular town is located about ten minutes away from Virginia Tech).
In additiona to that I also had a side hustle of playing cards semi-professionally in some of the casinos around the country from time to time.
It was sometime around this time of year that I had heard about a casino in West Virginia that was on the other side of Charleston in a place called Cross Lanes. Being that it was only a 2 1/2 hour trip from Christiansburg to there, I figured why not since I was already used to driving an hour in that direction just to get to the current electrical project that I was involved in. Besides I had already swam with the sharks in Atlantic City, Tunica, and Las Vegas, so I figured that those hillbillies in West Virginia didn’t stand a chance against me.
So, one Saturday night after working at the restaurant I turned the GPS on and headed for Tri-State, arriving at my destination at around 11pm. From that point on I immersed myself in playing cards until the wee hours of the night. Finally around 4:30 in the morning I had decided that I had enough. As I found out the hard way those hillbillies weren’t so easy to beat after all, so I tucked my tail, got in the car and left.
It didn’t hit me until I got down the road some of how mentally and physically exhausted I was. There was no way that I could stay the night in West Virginia. I had to be at work in the morning and seeing how I was going home empty handed I really wanted to recoup my losses somehow, so I pressed on.
After crossing the Virginia line I didn’t know how I was going to make it. My eye lids were heavy and I was incredibly drowsy. I even pulled over for a moment and contemplated sleeping in the car for a little while on the side of the road, but instead I put my convertible Mustang GT in gear and headed down the road.

Next in the series: Why do I believe? – Part 2

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David Bomber #1130793
Nottoway Correctional Center
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