When I first thought about this topic, I could not think of anything to write about. Then four-days ago, the memory floodgates opened and many memories of accidents came to mind.
Some involved me, like my mother’s pregnancy with me (I actually attended her wedding in utero), or when I cut the back of my hand on broken glass while playing in a junk car, or when I stepped on a rusty nail, or when I lobbed a small rock at a Robin and it hit and killed it, or when I was hiking and slipped breaking my ankle. Growing up, I had my fair share of accidental injuries to my body. But like always, I am not going to write about those as being not worthy. Besides, I just did write a little about those accidents.
I have written before how my parents’ divorce ended up causing my subconscious mind to shut off nearly all of my negative emotions. So, while I was working as a Deputy Sheriff in Pima County, Arizona, the loss of those feelings or rather those feelings being walled off, actually helped me do my job without emotional interference.
One midnight shift, a highway patrolman contacted me to help him find an address and to go with him to deliver a traffic death notification. It was not a pleasant experience and although I did feel sad for the lady whose husband had been killed, it did not consciously affect me.
On another midnight shift in the late fall, I responded to a rollover accident along a road next to an irrigation ditch. In this case, two high school boys were in the car and the tracks in the dirt and gravel roadway indicated that the driver either was showing off and lost control or he just lost control. The car rolled and both boys were thrown from the car as they were not wearing seatbelts. More accurately, the driver was thrown clear, but the passenger only got half-way out before the rolling car shut the door on his middle and killed him. Both boys had left a party where drinking was occurring. The driver was the drinker and lived. The passenger did not drink and died, which is an all too common result. One family lost a child needlessly and the driver has to live with the knowledge that he killed a school-mate.
On one summer afternoon, a car with six-migrant farm workers stopped by the local convenience store and purchased three or four six-packs of beer. Less than two miles from the store, there was another rollover accident, again with no seatbelts and one man was thrown out and the car ended on its side but right on top of the man's head. Evidence at the scene, indicated that at least one or two six-packs had already been consumed. No one called in that accident; I was driving by and saw the car on its side so I stopped. All of the five remaining men in the car had disappeared into the migrant worker camps and were never found or, I suspect, never even looked for. Once again I felt sad for the family left behind in Mexico, but did not mourn. I do wish the driver had been identified and caught. I don't blame him for running away because in Mexico the punishment is much more severe than in the US (at that time period anyway) and I’m sure he thought punishment in the US was probably the same or worse.
The following accident I wish I had not remembered. I remember it quite vividly and even the date, if not the exact year. It was winter, Christmas day to be exact. A member of the Air Force, an Airman First Class I believe, had been driving all night from southern California. His destination, Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson. People who stopped to impart information (or just to gawk) reported that he was passing them ‟like they were standing still.” Apparently, he fell asleep at the wheel and left the right side of eastbound Interstate-10 at the worst possible point and “T-boned” a concrete abutment for cattle to cross under the roadway. He, his wife, and three-month old baby all died. Two families lost a child AND a grandchild. I'm fairly confident in saying that Christmas day will never be the same for those families. This accident did affect me. I did feel sad, but I ended up with a strong dislike for the US Air Force personnel system.
The airman had orders to report to Davis-Monthan by noon on Christmas day. If not for the accident he would have made it. NO ONE would have been there to process him into his unit. He and his family would have been given temporary quarters until the next duty day. I dislike the Air Force personnel system, not only for what it did to me, but also because it doesn't care about the people the system is designed to serve. Rather the system serves the Air Force, not the men and women who make up the organization. In my opinion, there is no reason for anyone to transfer or report to a new assignment through the period beginning one week before and ending one week after Thanksgiving and the period beginning 15 December through 15 January. These are major holiday periods for families and human nature (which the military does not understand or care about) results in military personnel wanting to stay with their extended families until the ‟last minute.”
Over my adult life, many people, including some in our Telling Your Story group, have noticed I have some idiosyncrasies. I don't apologize for any of them. I just want everyone to recognize the events I have related in this and my other postings, helped shape me into the character whom you perceive today.
© 22 July 2013
About the Author
I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach. Just prior to turning 8 years old in 1956, I began living with my grandparents on their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my parents divorced.
When united with my mother and stepfather two years later in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California, graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966. After three tours of duty with the Air Force, I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11 terrorist attack.
I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010. I find writing these memories to be therapeutic.
My story blog is, TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com.
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