I thought I was a goner on the night of Jan. 12 when my minivan went into a slide down a hill on black ice on Route 156 in Chesterville.

At the time, front-wheel-drive was a curse, because of my decades-long driving experience with rear-wheel-drive and four-wheel-drive pickup trucks.

Maybe I’ve watched one too many “Die Hard” movies, but I envisioned my van spinning sideways then flipping and rolling down the hill before crashing into trees that lined either side of the road, or caroming into a nearby brook.

It wasn’t the first time I’ve slid on black ice, but it was both the first with a front-wheel-drive and, at 100 yards or so, the longest slide I’ve ever done.

I was headed to the North Chesterville Grange to interview and photograph Roger Lane, a World War II veteran and Greatest Generation medal recipient.

Figuring I’d get there quicker, I took Route 156 in Wilton rather than drive Route 2 to Farmington Falls, then take Route 156 down on its other end.

First mistake. Back roads are usually icier than main roads.

In that split second before the slide at the top of the hill at 45 mph in the dark on an unfamiliar road, I said to myself, “Uh oh. This doesn’t look good.”

My high beams had picked up a silvery sheen down the hill.

And then, away I went as the van’s rear started to fishtail. I tapped the brakes, it got worse.

Second mistake, according to winter-driving articles on Web sites like wikiHow and RoadRager.com.

The wikiHow article stated that with front-wheel-drive on black ice, I should have gently accelerated to pull out of the slide while turning the front wheels in the direction in which I wanted to go.

Or, according to RoadRager, rather than tap the brakes, I should have applied steady pressure to the van’s anti-lock braking system and let it do its job.

I’ll have to practice each to see what works.

Thank God no one else was on the road then, because I slid across both lanes trying to find traction and avoid shoulders and the woods and not panic.

At one point, midway down the hill, I really thought I was going to straighten it out. And then it got radically worse – the rear end passed the front end as I did a 180.

At least I was going straight then, albeit sliding backwards down a hill. When I turned the wheels to spin back around like they do in the movies, the rear went sideways, and wham! The rear punched into a snow bank.

Thankfully, I always wear my safety belt, because my body felt like it really wanted to fly out the window when the van suddenly stopped.

Getting out shakily, I saw the front wheels just barely on the pavement, a blessing with front-wheel-drive.

Third mistake, though, I wasn’t carrying a bucket of sand or road salt like I usually do during the winter for traction in getting unstuck quick.

My fourth mistake: no shovel with which to dig a path out of crusty snow for each rear wheel. What’d I use? My long-stick ice scraper, and furiously, too, because I had to get to my assignment.

Special thanks goes to the only other driver out in the middle of nowhere to come by, stop and ask if I was OK.

The van was undamaged, but I was quite sore for days afterward. Lessons learned the hard way.