Look both ways

No talking, I can't talk to you. This road is crazy every morning. People just pull out in front of you.

The radio station usually plays NPR unless it gets too intense about something in the world that is baffling and insolvable. Then I try the pop music station. Not a great choice, they play the same songs everyday and every hour. “Girls just want to have fun” by Cyndi Lauper and “Beat It” by Michael Jackson lose their luster. The play list is lost in the 1980s.

Last choice is the country music station. Not that I don't like country music. It's just sounds the same. Songs about drinking cold beer mixed with the right wing ideology spouted continuously by a radio host. Its not the opinion that bothers me, it is the lack of rebuttal. It spouting off about serious topics using spin versus what is at stake. It's taking my culture and telling the next generation who we are.

You learn a lot listening to radio. For example, Richard Nixon was the most liberal president of the twentieth century on NPR. I agree. It really hits me on Facebook when I see former hippies being the most adamant conservatives. One woman who is lucky to be alive wants welfare recipients drug tested. She has lived on disability most of her life and --- has had drug abuse problems.

Of course a lot of decent religious people I grew up with have similar opinions. They weren't hippies, they didn't smoke pot. Why I didn't acquire these same opinions? I don't know.

Anyway, I am a creature of habit. NPR moves to classical music after 9 am and frankly it doesn't have a lot of beat. I know, I know. Anyway, I stopped at a red light and the pop music station had just played a rousing repeat of “Billie Jean” by Michael Jackson. John Tesh was opining on his “Eat Your Vegetables and Walk Carefully On The Thin White Line of Life” rhetoric.

I looked up and the light was green. Dang, I need to not let my mind wander I thought. I released the brake and as my habit was I looked to the left to make sure the traffic had stopped. I stepped on the brake quickly. Barreling down the road with no sign of stopping was a log truck.

Traffic rarely comes from over the hill on the other side. Today, a sporty Trans Am came through the light and hit the log truck.

I took a right and thought I had no cell phone. Stopping to give any help I could, a sheriff car was already there. He must have been behind me. A pudgy 19 year old got out of the car unscathed. No damage to the log truck. I wasn't needed. The sheriff saw everything.

When I left, the log truck driver looked like a decent man. We were all lucky. However, I did feel for the truck driver. I've screwed up before. All in all, he dodged a bullet as well as I. The kid had angels cushioning him.