"Letters to Miss Emily..."

[backhoe]

Backhoe

I trust that as time goes by, God willing, the pain decreases. It will not totally fade away, as to keep us in check when remembering friends, family, and loved ones that we have lost. I am thankful, too, that our gracious host and hostess have allowed you to grieve in this manner. My prayers for them, as always, and to you kind sir, serving up the best only.

I thank you for your kindly wishes-- and Connie and that "Rush to Chaos" guy for putting up with my musings and scribblings...

Some say "life is a circle," but I always- sarcastically-- subscribed to the theory

"Life is a Circus"-- complete with ringmaster, clowns, and the Man on the Flying Trapeze... damnation, it's a Zoo, some times...

I'll "talk" to you, indirectly, by addressing yet another

"Letter to Miss Emily"--

<B>Sweetie?</b>

We passed another night here- a fairly quiet one.

I dreamed of you, for the first time, last night-- but before I could grab that tape recorder ( the one I just bought you, so you could record your own troubled dreams... "I want to scream!""I want to scream!"-- what did you mean? Your Momma's Death? Our future? That molestation I suspect, that we never resolved? ) and speak of it. the memory had faded away.

Kind of like you did, sweetie...

All I remember is that is wasn't scary or bad- you were just... there.

Kind of like we are, now, without you-- we are just "here," waiting.

Zoey is still hot, but those $45 wonder clippers I just bought actually are shaving the hair off of her much better than the "quiet motor" clippers I got at first-- I follow the old girl around the yard and shave her.

She actually stands still- you know how spooky & scared she used to be?-- and lets me shave her, like she understands that I am trying to help her out. I figure the birdies you loved so much will take her woolly hair and use it in their nests.

God's Little Ones-- the Ones who cannot speak of their hurts or fears, their loves or concerns- they are just "there..." like we are... stuck on this damned ball of dirt, waiting...

So much has happened since the time "you went away" and I started this that there is no time, no room, to recount it here.

So I'll just make one note of that time, that you would remember, if, if... that awful "if"-- you were still here...

Remember that house down the street that we passed on that last day you were alive? The one they were re-roofing? The one they were replacing the old shingle roof with that new, "hurricane proof" sheet metal?

That was the day you sank, shuddering with joy and saying "bliss! bliss!" into that pool I gave to Cherry & Sammy... Sammy, who saw you in my truck, when we went to Wal-Mart that day, and told me about that, later...

After you went away...

Well, they finally finished it, and the roof is done...

And you were right-- their roof may hold, but in a single-story house like that- they'll all drown if "the big one" comes...

You were right about so many things. I miss your wise, and funny, and rudely X-rated commentary.

But mostly?

I miss you, Ratso...

We're standing by...

At our Duty Stations here...

Waiting... And wishing you still were here...

i still love you, baby
johnny

[backhoe]

And just a minor footnote to all this?

<B>Munchkin?</b>

I let myself get dehydrated in this ghastly heat...

Yes, you know I know better...

You remember that story I always told you about the first "job" I had, at the Island Auto Parts machine shop? A job in the sense it was the first place I worked, but they didn't pay me-- I gave my labor, and they taught me how to run the machine tools there...

It is blazing hot summer-- the building is brick, the old Post Office building on Mallory Street, and the exhaust fan in the shop sucks all the heat off the street, all the heat in the building-- right back into the shop, and blows it out into the alley behind it...

First day on the job, I get there and Mr. Tracy- who owned the place, sez:

"Watch the Old Guy, and do what he does..."

Well, The Old Guy was Roger, and he was... oh, 20 years younger than I am now, but I watched him, and the first thing he does is take a huge glass tumbler ( no plastic, no "big gulps" in those days-- the telephones had "dials..." ) and fill it with cracked ice.

Then, he takes a glass pitcher out of the fridge and pours sweet tea ( the Original Energy Drink ) over it, and starts sipping.

He sipped on it all day.

Me, I just got a coke or two, from the 5 cent machine in front of the store, all day.

Sweating like a racehorse all day, lifting and shoving engine blocks and cylinder heads and brake drums and other really heavy stuff all over that cramped, dark, hot shop...

Went home. Couldn't sleep. Shook, shaked, and shivered all night...

Dragged my sef' to work the next day, and told them what had happened...

Roger sez:

"You need to drink more..."

Fixes me a glass like his, with the admonition "don't drink it too fast-- you'll get The Shakes... sip on it all day..."

He had it right.

Naturally, I've felt like Death Warmed Over since... since..."you went away"-- but I've felt even worse the last few, in the heat.

Finally figured out "Roger was right"-- and started hauling a glass of ice water everywhere with me.

So the body's better, now.

Just the heart aches...

i'll be around
i miss you, varmint
i surely do
johnny

[backhoe]

Just now, here:

http://tinyurl.com/2a2ywdx

Jeff Morgan Sez:
“John - your posts have been cathartic as I mourn the deaths around me. You put into words my thoughts and feelings - the good and the bad - that I don't seem to have an outlet for. Thank you for the gift you have given me. If there is any way I can repay you, please let me know.”

What you wrote is payment enough ( altho I- like my dead & gone Miss Emily-- really need a job, but that's not your concern )-- it helps me a little to write about these things.
... See More
It doesn't, and can't, fix The Really Big Problem- my “other self” being dead and gone-- but it helps a little.

In olden days I wrote tons of ad copy for my businesses- some were hits ( “...at The Front Porch, of course...” ) and some were misses ( “Fudge N' Such...” ) but I could whack 'em out. Never got the hang of writing anything much longer, like short stories or novels. Damn it. Short attention span Theatre...

Slogans and quips and couplets ( ...and tygers, oh! My! ) that was johnny, in olden days.

Now, johnny's just old. And tired. And hurt. And missing...

Miss Emily...

-30-

[backhoe]

My Morning Prayer:
( And some- some, will say I commit some sort of sin or error by the way I address this. I?
I am beyond caring about such things... )

God? And Miss Emily?

The Great Giver of Life rises in the East, and I uncover the bird and run the dogs, and prepare to make my way thru this Evil Old World...

"one mo' time!" as the jazz musicians used to say...

I thank you for the light, the food in my belly, the love of my very old and very young dogs...

...and that little, small, moment of time I held her...

Oh. I know it was for a quarter-century... I hand-made a heart out of German silver, with "25" in the center, and gave it to her on that anniversary-- it still hangs on her side of the bed... but it seems so short, when I look back...
( And yeah, Satchel, some "things" seem to be gaining on me... )

Give me strength to stand

Alone

One more day

And walk the Good Earth, one mo' time.

And don't give me anything I can't manage

Without her, by my side.

And when I lay me down, let me rest, without nightmares or sadness.

So I can stand

Another day

Without her

Amen

And

"Ahmein..."

[Kate Shaw]

How the baubles and the shiny things-- money and fame, furs and diamonds, accolades and praise-- are foolish, fleeting things...

The only thing of value is your family, and perhaps a few friends-- altho they too, come and go.

I learned all that a very long time ago, and yet God... or the Master Coder... or The First Cause-- seems to keep whacking me over the head with that first lesson, and I... am just baffled.

Yes, He does keep trying to teach us, by example to others as well as in our own situation, how mistaken we are when we go to bed at night thinking *Oh well, tomorrow is another day.* Last night I saw just a minute of some evening soap on my way through the channels, in which a petulant candy striper shouted at a crabby old lady patient *Why dont you just die?* and BANG! the woman dropped dead. As I zoomed out of the area, I reflected again on how many people slammed the door in the face of someone at home on their way to their appointment with 9/11/01, thinking to let that person stew until evening ... Think of the eternal guilt of a child who screamed at her dad *I hate you and I hope you die!* as he left for Cantor Fitzgerald that morning, because he refused to buy her the latest Binkie...always remember what is important: what you do together...and what is not important: what you buy thinking it will take the place of what you should have done together...

[backhoe]

How the baubles and the shiny things-- money and fame, furs and diamonds, accolades and praise-- are foolish, fleeting things...

The only thing of value is your family, and perhaps a few friends-- altho they too, come and go.

I learned all that a very long time ago, and yet God... or the Master Coder... or The First Cause-- seems to keep whacking me over the head with that first lesson, and I... am just baffled.

Yes, He does keep trying to teach us, by example to others as well as in our own situation, how mistaken we are when we go to bed at night thinking *Oh well, tomorrow is another day.* Last night I saw just a minute of some evening soap on my way through the channels, in which a petulant candy striper shouted at a crabby old lady patient *Why dont you just die?* and BANG! the woman dropped dead. As I zoomed out of the area, I reflected again on how many people slammed the door in the face of someone at home on their way to their appointment with 9/11/01, thinking to let that person stew until evening ... Think of the eternal guilt of a child who screamed at her dad *I hate you and I hope you die!* as he left for Cantor Fitzgerald that morning, because he refused to buy her the latest Binkie...always remember what is important: what you do together...and what is not important: what you buy thinking it will take the place of what you should have done together...

Like I said elsewhere, Kate-

"Lord, make my words sweet
and tender
for I may be forced
to eat them..."

[backhoe]

Well, Cutie,
It's 10 minutes to 11 here, and I just came in from the porch-- I've been going thru your luggage and EFM ( education for ministry ) stuff from that "final conference" you hosted. Who would have guessed it would turn out this way?

Remember I forgot to load two bags and had to come back, run the dogs, and race back to you? You said you had the EFM checkbook- the one I still can't find.

Anyway, I went thru your stuff-- that new luggage we just got you at Belk's, for these trips-- you sure had a lot of lighters, kid.

I found looking at your DVD player disturbing- probably picturing you alone, in that motel room for the very last time, watching your beloved Star Trek... so when Chris came over with Smokey, I asked him if he could use it, and son of a gun, he said his was broken!

I gave it to him ( sure hope it works! ) in the backpack you never got around to using.

In your EFM stuff, I took a badge you made, a pen, and your business card, and joined them with that mobile I'm making of your "stuff."

You had a bookworm, like the thousands you hand-knitted as goodies to give out at these conferences, but you hadn't gotten around to putting eyes on it.

How "Emily"-- I added that, too.

I really don't know what to do with the EFM stuff- Cynthia Hargiss (?), I think, was interested-- I was in shock when I exchanged emails, but I think she's the one-- so I'll set it to one side, somewhere.

Along those lines, I'm going thru your beloved little red buzz bomb of a car-- I think you had a pile of related material there.

Part of the New Austerity Program here ( AKA, "can we save our own asses?" ) involves rolling cigarettes, cutting power consumption, fewer trips-- and driving your car more, since it gets noticeably better mileage than The Zook..

I had to move your stuffed animals- particularly that "good luck" Angel Dog on the clock-- to much "you." I set them, with your CD's in your studio with your EFM things.

I'm getting ready to make "the great circle"-- do as much in one trip in your car as I can.

I only broke down a few times, going thru your stuff- I reckon you would have been proud. But God & Emily? It sure hurts.

Gotta run, babes... I'll try to get back fast, and in one piece, for our "kids..."

johnny still loves you

[backhoe]

There's a place, here, for this:

http://www.freedominion.com.pa/phpBB2/v ... 95#1511395<P>
<b>styky wrote:</b></span><blockquote><b>backhoe wrote:</b></span></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="quote">From Miss Emily's document folder, dated 5-8-2009
<br>

<br>
"I had the weirdest thing happen"
<br>

<br>
FB won’t let me post a long story so:
<br>

<br>
Part I:
<br>

<br>
I had the weirdest thing happen today. For 8 years I have dealt with constant pain in my neck following surgery to fix a bad disc in my neck and bone spurs growing into my spine. The pain is always there at different levels, from nagging to somewhat screaming. I don’t mind the pain because the surgery returned use of my right leg and arm. I deal with it and live with it.
<br>

<br>

<br>
Part II:

<br>

<br>
Well, today I swam in my pool longer than usual and when I got out, I felt strange. I sat down to figure out this odd feeling. It was this: no pain. NO. PAIN. I can’t describe my joy. It didn’t last. But for a couple of hours I was pain-free. I will swim more. I have no words to express how those 2 hours without pain were other than “Thank you, God.”
<br>

<br>
Well that certainly does explain Miss Emily's affection for the swimming pool doesn't it. What a wonderful find.</blockquote>
<br>

<br>
Old friend, I had no idea- no earthly idea-- how badly she was hurting- she never told me.
<br>

<br>
It explains why she was so reluctant to go job hunting with me-- I thought she was dragging her feet, and it was a source of friction between us.
<br>

<br>
It explains why she was always sitting down ( I, in my ignorance, used to chide her, "If you moved as much as I do, you be as skinny as me..." Forgive me, Emmy-- I just did not know... ) even out in the yard.
<br>

<br>
There's an old medical joke that ends with
<br>

<br>
"The pathologist
<br>
knows everything

<br>
but
<br>
it's always
<br>
One Day
<br>
too late..."
<br>

<br>
Too late, for us. Forgive me, my Heart- I just did not know how much that thing hurt you.<br><P><HR><P>Here's the part- and I will do this unlike "a letter to," and give straight narrative.<P>
In 1996 Emily was in an awful wreck-- a fella ran a red light as she was coming home and smashed in to the driver's side of her car-- an RX-7 I got her for our wedding, which she, typically just loved.<P>It shoved her to the middle of the car-- miraculously nothing was broken or even cut, but for a month and more, she was one giant bruise. She moved like an 80 year old woman.<P>And X-ray of her neck showed a lot of calcium spurs pointing at her spinal cord, but nothing was done at the time.<P>In 2001, she started dropping things. Badly. Had to resign from her job at the Temple it got so bad, and you know modern medicine-- it took months to get the right doctor and get a diagnosis.<P>A disc was deteriorating badly, and the choice was do nothing, and she would end up paralyzed, or dead, or lock the area with a plate and fusion.<P>Fortunately, her insurance covered it- we never could have paid the $60,000 plus it cost.<P>Instead of taking an hour, as planned, she was in all day.<P>The surgeon- a really fine man, and doc, said the disc was gone, and he'd never seen so many spurs in his life.<P>It was rough-- I stayed up 36 hours straight, with only cat naps, to look out for her, and it took a slow, long year to recover.<P>If her boss Walt hadn't "papered over" things, she'd have lost the job. She could only manage an hour, every few days, at first.<P>It saved her life, but cost her singing voice, which was a terrible blow.<P>She was one of the few who could sing from high soprano all the way to bass.<P>After the plate? Five notes, in tenor.<P>I knew it hurt her-- I just never knew how badly.

[backhoe]

Well Dear Heart O' mine?

Another day slips over the horizon. I wish I could remember more of the lyrics to that number we sang at The High Holy days...

"The Sun goes down
the shadows fall
the evening breeze
is drawing nigh

The setting orb
now homeward flys..."

Those were good days, hon-- once our Jewish friends realized none of us dissolute Whiskey-palians had any interest in trying to preach to or convert them-- we just wanted to sing-- we got along fine.

I've marked my packs of Kools, and only one and a half are gone- of course, I've been rolling some of my own. It does slow you down.

It's obviously been past the three years you quit your job since you visited the Grog shop-- the personnel there thought I'd gotten a new car. Tarnation, time flies, doesn't it?

Yeah.

Tomorrow night, it will be month since I saw you alive. Sure miss you, kid, you were... the best.

I ran the dogs and fed them-- apparently I've been trying to starve Cole-- he hasn't been eating much dry food, so I tried one these "Lassie" goumet brands, and he snarfed it right down.

Starving in the midst of plenty, as Dad used to quip. Zoey eats it better, too, so I may give it to her as well, just watch her weight.

Heat index was 104 today, 109 yesterday-- I'm trying to hold the electric bills down, but other than retaping the window seams-- what we did for winter is coming loose-- and shearing more fur off of Zoey, I'm kind of at a loss. The heat is beating her down.

I'm keeping as many lights off as I can, but I put the one upstairs in you middle room-- the one we never finished-- back on a timer.

We are having "roving bands of Hispanic kids with sticks" problems, and now it's just me, a puppy, and a toothless old dog. You were Hell with short shotguns and full-auto weapons... but I don't have you as backstop any more. Damn it.

Going thru you stuff was pretty rough, but it is better outside on the porch.
Maybe I can do a little, at a time.

I sure miss your company, your activity, your quiet joy at living. Reading your scrawled autobiography was poignant-- when you joined Honey Creek, you saw it as a path to the priesthood-- then, one day, you stopped talking about it, and I never learned why this was.

You left some mysteries, kiddo, that I'll never fathom this side of life.

We're supposed to have rain,
( and I'll worry about the back roof and garage roof )
so good for the plants and your "baby grass." ( Until I thought back, I never realized how many times you used "baby.") I guess not being able to have them preyed on your mind more that I had thought... I am sincerely sorry about that. Maybe if you had held out for an unsterile man, everything would have been different for you. But I did need you, and tried to be a good man for you.

Gotta go- minor stuff to do around this big old pile of termite bait...

"...and I straighten
Miss Emily picture
on the wall..."

still love you
johnny

[backhoe]

Well, my sweet one...

Another lonely night passed, "since you went away..."
( and besides the reference to an old movie, I keep thinking "Another lonely park, another Sunday" )

http://tinyurl.com/2aw8f9m

That was playing on the radio all the time when I was courting Ole Hellion, wifey #1, kicking those other suitors of hers aside, and life was.... young.

My parent's house still stood, the Island wasn't the congested mess is has become ( you always got nauseated when we went there in later years- and once again, You Were Right- it's not like it used to be, at all... ) and life, and living, and the World itself stretched before me.

You had your own suitors too, when we were courting-- I googled them and found one, and talked to him-- a good guy, in my unhumble opinion-- but the other one I remember- whose toupee kept falling off-- was lost in the white noise of the internet. God grant me the wisdom to just shave my head if my hair starts falling out...

( and a little, personal aside? When Helen died, my hair went from ash blonde to grey, almost overnight... grey-headed at age 32. When you had that surgery. it started falling out for a while... finally grew back, but I wonder what it will do this time around? Life, it's a circus... )

Cole, the Golden One you loved so much, just let out a yelp-- I found a flea near his eyes yesterday and snatched and killed the damn thing just like you showed me, crushing it with a fingernail-- my hands used to be as fast ( but not quite as accurate ) as yours, and while I can't count on that reliably anymore-- that age thing-- once again the old boxer/judo man came thru... I'll look at him later, when the light is better... this getting older sure is Hell, I can't see, or hear, or smell, like I used to...

Your dogpack let me sleep until 4, a small mercy, then we all went into the yard-- which had cooled off during the rain ( check roofs, dummy... )-- for the morning saunter about.

It's kind of like a Walkabout in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamtime">Dreamtime</a> for me.

Sometimes, I just wish The Dream would simply end, or I'd get so deep into it that I never woke up.

"Another Marine Reporting, Sir,
I've served my time in Hell..."

Never been a Gyrine-- as well you know-- but seen enough of Hell here, to wonder if most of us won't get a pass in the next life...

Remember what I told you, so many times?

"Maybe, just maybe, That Guy who was hung on a Cross had to do that, to understand what it really is like to be a mortal, dying human being. The good parts of life are so good, it's indescribable. And the bad? Are so awful, you have to live them to understand them.

Maybe, He had to embrace life, to really know what it's like to be one of us men and women-- and maybe, he;ll cut us all a little slack for our mortal failures..."

And half the time, you'd nod solemnly, or agree, and half the time you'd wisecrack and claim the world wasn't really run by God-- the birds were doing it, and that's why it's so Effed up...

Well, we've got "another lonely park, another Sunday" ahead of us-- what little "us" is left-- and I need to drink and eat, and get moving, one mo' time, cutie.

I sure hope you are well...

"Somewhere, beyond the blue..."

and johnny?
misses you

[Edward Kennedy]

There's a place, here, for this:

http://www.freedominion.com.pa/phpBB2/v ... 95#1511395<P>
<b>styky wrote:</b></span><blockquote><b>backhoe wrote:</b></span></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="quote">From Miss Emily's document folder, dated 5-8-2009
<br>

<br>
"I had the weirdest thing happen"
<br>

<br>
FB won’t let me post a long story so:
<br>

<br>
Part I:
<br>

<br>
I had the weirdest thing happen today. For 8 years I have dealt with constant pain in my neck following surgery to fix a bad disc in my neck and bone spurs growing into my spine. The pain is always there at different levels, from nagging to somewhat screaming. I don’t mind the pain because the surgery returned use of my right leg and arm. I deal with it and live with it.
<br>

<br>

<br>
Part II:

<br>

<br>
Well, today I swam in my pool longer than usual and when I got out, I felt strange. I sat down to figure out this odd feeling. It was this: no pain. NO. PAIN. I can’t describe my joy. It didn’t last. But for a couple of hours I was pain-free. I will swim more. I have no words to express how those 2 hours without pain were other than “Thank you, God.”
<br>

<br>
Well that certainly does explain Miss Emily's affection for the swimming pool doesn't it. What a wonderful find.</blockquote>
<br>

<br>
Old friend, I had no idea- no earthly idea-- how badly she was hurting- she never told me.
<br>

<br>
It explains why she was so reluctant to go job hunting with me-- I thought she was dragging her feet, and it was a source of friction between us.
<br>

<br>
It explains why she was always sitting down ( I, in my ignorance, used to chide her, "If you moved as much as I do, you be as skinny as me..." Forgive me, Emmy-- I just did not know... ) even out in the yard.
<br>

<br>
There's an old medical joke that ends with
<br>

<br>
"The pathologist
<br>
knows everything

<br>
but
<br>
it's always
<br>
One Day
<br>
too late..."
<br>

<br>
Too late, for us. Forgive me, my Heart- I just did not know how much that thing hurt you.<br><P><HR><P>Here's the part- and I will do this unlike "a letter to," and give straight narrative.<P>
In 1996 Emily was in an awful wreck-- a fella ran a red light as she was coming home and smashed in to the driver's side of her car-- an RX-7 I got her for our wedding, which she, typically just loved.<P>It shoved her to the middle of the car-- miraculously nothing was broken or even cut, but for a month and more, she was one giant bruise. She moved like an 80 year old woman.<P>And X-ray of her neck showed a lot of calcium spurs pointing at her spinal cord, but nothing was done at the time.<P>In 2001, she started dropping things. Badly. Had to resign from her job at the Temple it got so bad, and you know modern medicine-- it took months to get the right doctor and get a diagnosis.<P>A disc was deteriorating badly, and the choice was do nothing, and she would end up paralyzed, or dead, or lock the area with a plate and fusion.<P>Fortunately, her insurance covered it- we never could have paid the $60,000 plus it cost.<P>Instead of taking an hour, as planned, she was in all day.<P>The surgeon- a really fine man, and doc, said the disc was gone, and he'd never seen so many spurs in his life.<P>It was rough-- I stayed up 36 hours straight, with only cat naps, to look out for her, and it took a slow, long year to recover.<P>If her boss Walt hadn't "papered over" things, she'd have lost the job. She could only manage an hour, every few days, at first.<P>It saved her life, but cost her singing voice, which was a terrible blow.<P>She was one of the few who could sing from high soprano all the way to bass.<P>After the plate? Five notes, in tenor.<P>I knew it hurt her-- I just never knew how badly.

(%^&+_)*(&^%#$%^&*+_)(*&^%$%^&*((@#$_)(*)*&^^&*_)(*&^*()

This is the umpteenth time I have heard of the same thing happening to more than a few people...that is their lives being ruined and in many cases drastically shortened by injuries in automobile accidents THAT WERE NOT THEIR FAULT. It generally carries with it the common theme of stingy and difficult insurance companies that withold monies due the injured. So here is the same situation yet again.

Right off I know a deceased man who was head on bashed and lived in misery many years less than his alloted threescore and ten. Ditto for a man who a driver approaching from the other direction, hit while pulling into the passing lane to avoid rear ending a car in front of him, and head on piled into the innocent victim.

Then a woman I know who was rear ended and is a physical mess now, with the insurance company giving her a hard time and making her go to court for her $$$ AND SHE WAS TOTALLY INNOCENT.

Then my wife's father who they lost when she was a young girl, head on crash caused by a drunk in a truck driving in the wrong lane who her father trteid to avoid by taking the ditch on his own side. Two people died in that one and the drunk driver got off due to the wheels of injustice and some conniving from the powers that be.

This is in large part why I drive big vehicles with big engines, and high clearance, if an irresponsible idiot hits me, uness they drive a transport, they will be eating the Dodge bumper long before getting to me.

I dare suggest that M.E. would have been instantly killed had she been wearing her seat belt. I know a fellow in the same scenario who walked away because he was driving a large vehicle and NOT wearing a seat belt that would have cut him in half or held him securely as the twisted metal from the impact squeezed the life out of him.

[backhoe]

Edward, speaking as a former "perfessional wrecker operator?" ( Driving for Willie Newman in the seventies, and running John's Wrecker Service 1991-1999 )

Accidents are just that- chaotic-- anything can happen.

Miss Emily was wearing belt and harness-- but somehow, everything got shoved to the middle-- usually in a wreck like that, the belt pins you down while you are crushed. She was extremely lucky. Or, it wasn't her time to get punched out on that Big Clock.

One of her dearest friends was killed back in the eighties, in a head-on collision.

Coming home from college, another car veered into his lane, and since everyone was killed, no one knows, really, what happened.

But the only marks on him were seatbelt and harness-- if he had been ejected, he might have lived, albeit slashed up by the windshield. It was that forward deceleration-- over a hundred "G's"-- that killed him. Nothing can survive that.

[Edward Kennedy]

In my profession, any work above 40 feet is known as the kill zone...if you fall you will suffer aortal rupture and quickly die. There are exceptions but very few, and many die from falls even half that distance.

Impact forces are indeed the killers in auto collisions.

Had a ditz 17 years old with a G1 licence pile into the back five feet of the side of our trailer carrying a stump grinder, and she totalled the mini van, the trailer needed one axle replaced for a total damage figure of $360.00

Policeman on the scene said they are made to self destruct and neither her or the passenger suffered even a scratch.

My son the driver was charged with not allowing adequate time to effect a safe left hand turn which we took to court...my insurance had doubled due to the accident.

She testified she had seen the truck but not the trailer...her passenger said he had seen both truck and trailer. In effect she was guilty of negligence and while not addressed, also speeding. The judge quashed the charge, the fine, and sent us on our way with an intact record of NO AT FAULT ACCIDENTS ON RECORD.

I had to threaten the insurance company with legal action for refusing to follow the rule of law instead of their stupid models which they had used to indict us as guilty. They quickly refunded the $600.00 surcharge they had levied after the accident.

[backhoe]

Edward, I have always found dark amusement at people who are scared to death of guns ( Because they are so dangerous! They kill people! ) who will pile into their vehicles and without a thought, launch I don't know how many foot-tons of energy down the road.

Yakking, eating, applying makeup, thinking about everything in the world except--

keeping that much power and energy under control...

[Edward Kennedy]

Edward, I have always found dark amusement at people who are scared to death of guns ( Because they are so dangerous! They kill people! ) who will pile into their vehicles and without a thought, launch I don't know how many foot-tons of energy down the road.

Yakking, eating, applying makeup, thinking about everything in the world except--

keeping that much power and energy under control...

Yup.

In my younger days, when my peers were attending dances, getting sloshed and driving hell bent in cars provided for them by their parents, my mother was criticized for actually backing myself and my brother for purchases of "murdercycles".

A motorcycle is faster, more manoeverable, and can stop quicker than any car, but provides zero protection in the event of collision.

I have been driving them 44 years and have been to several funerals of people I went to school with who died in car accidents.