On Sunday I was in what could have been a pretty serious accident, but luckily no-one seems to have been badly hurt. I was approaching a T intersection, slowing down to stop at the stopsign, when a guy in a late 80s Chevy S-10 pickup turned the corner into my lane and collided with me head on.
My car (a 99 Toyota Corolla) was totalled--the engine compartment folded up like an accordian, spewing styrofoam (!), plastic, fiberglass and metal across the roadway. The pickup was dinged up, but drivable (I think the frame may have been bent, though, so it may have been totalled too.
Anyway, it turns out that the guy who hit me hadn't had a license since 2000. He claimed that the truck he was driving belonged to his boss, who had sent him on an errand. The plates on the truck were actually for some other vehicle. He claimed that the truck had insurance, but the paper he used as proof of that looked like some kind of flyer with some of the text circled.
The cops had me sit in the back of their cruiser and give my side of the story. While this was happening, they gave me back my license. I put the license back in my wallet, and must have set the wallet down on the seat next to me. After I finished giving my statement and got out of the car, the guy who hit me got in the car to tell his version of events. Apparently he saw my wallet, remembered the old adage about it being an ill wind that blows no one good luck, and decided that after three years without a license, he finally had to opportunity to acquire one--mine. He stole my wallet.
In any case, I don't really care too much about having lost the car, or even the wallet. My wife and I were both relatively unscathed, and the guy who hit us was completely unhurt. Material items can be replaced--I'm just glad everybody's okay.
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(I will give a rat's patootie about the wallet troubles later. Right now all I can think about is how fragile life is, and how glad I am for a few pounds of styrofoam, plastic, fiberglass and metal.)
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What else did you have in the wallet? Does your drivers license have your SS # on it? Were there any credit cards or stuff like that? This could be worse than you think.
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I know CT! I'm so glad we were in our good car. If we'd been in our crap car, an '87 Chevy Nova, I don't think that I'd in in any kind of condition to be writing this.
I was so glad that C wasn't hurt. I remember thinking, right before impact, that she'd be okay, because the impact was more on my side than hers. That wouldn't really mean that she'd be safe, of course, but in that moment I was really relieved by it.
I feel like I was kicked in the ribs by a horse, which I think is attributable to the airbag, and I've got a rapidly healing friction burn on my wrist from the air-bag's deployment, but those seem to be the worst injuries that anybody involved received.
msquared, luckily, I'd refused to let them put my SSN on my driver's license. There were a number of credit cards in my wallet, along with a block-buster card and a couple library cards, but I was able to get everything cancelled before the guy had a chance to use them. Basically all I'm out is about $60 and a lottery ticket. Oh, and a car.
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Yeah kat, the guy certainly had nerve, didn't he? He was also, apparently, much more able to deal with the shock of the whole situation that I was.
He actually struck me as a pretty nice guy who'd had a pretty unfortunate life. He looked homeless, and was absolutely filthy, covered head to foot in grime of some sort. He was wearing very cheap, worn looking clothing. The first thing he did was come over to our car and make sure that we were both okay. In his situation, I would have understood if he'd chosen to bolt (although maybe he was just angling for the wallet! ), but he didn't. He kind of reminded me of gollum, actually, in that circumstance had twisted him into something much less, and much more pathetic, than he might have been.
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quote: That wouldn't really mean that she'd be safe, of course, but in that moment I was really relieved by it.
Funny how the mind works at those times, huh?
quote:... I've got a rapidly healing friction burn on my wrist from the air-bag's deployment...
Be sure you rinse off the skin very thoroughly. The powder that accompanies the deployment is a strong irritant in itself.
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Kind of funny--yesterday morning C and I were talking just after we'd woken up. My body and head both were aching, and I said "man, I feel like I've been hit by a truck". It took me a couple of seconds to realize that I had a very good reason for feeling exactly that way.
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Yeah CT, it is funny, isn't it? Rationality is kind of a veneer that gets worn off pretty quickly in moments of crisis, I think.
Interesting about the powder being an irritant; I had no idea. I wonder if the skin was primarily irritated? I had been surprised at the rapidity with which it was healing.
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This is the hard part about having friends and loved ones. There are so many things to hurt them -- germs floating around, awful drivers, everything.
Sad about the gollum part. Sounds like a liminal existence, especially given his choices.
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Don't knock the Nova, man. Good ol' American steel, those cars were. I once got run off the road in a '71 Chevelle and hit a tree at 55. Totalled the car and half the tree, but I only scratched my shin.
Glad you got out of this one okay. Though I'd hate having my wallet stolen...new ones are tough to break in, like an unused baseball glove.
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What nerve!!!! Jeez, isn't there some way to get ahold of that guy or whatever? Being without a license and driving a car with bad plates, shouldn't he have been arrested??? What the heck!!!
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Yeah CT, loving someone definitely makes you vulnerable, doesn't it? It's worth it though. It's worth so much more than I could possibly express.
Frisco, if I had an old style Chevy Nova you'd be right, and it would probably just have have its finish scratched by this accident. However, my Chevy Nova is of the late 80's, Toyota-with-a-Chevy-Emblem, very reliable, good gas milage, almost no armor at all type Chevy Nova, so if we'd been in that, people would have probably had to scrape us up off the road.
Thanks, everybody, for the well wishing. Hatrack's a great place.
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I've been wondering the same thing (why he wasn't arrested). Heck, I thought they took you in if you were caught driving around without proof of insurance on you, so I naturally just assumed that they'd do the same if a person were driving around without a license in somebody else's car that had the wrong plates on it. Apparently not though.
I know the guy's name, phone number, and address. Immediately after I got out of the car and was able to get my hands to stop shaking, I went into super-cool-organized-rational mode and interviewed him, getting all of his personal information written down. I listened when he was giving the cops his information, and the name, address, and phone number matched, which they probably wouldn't have had he been making it up. The thing is, what can I do with that information?
I've thought about calling him to see if he's okay, or if he started feeling whiplash pain the next day or something, but I haven't done that either.
I don't know whether I hope that lottery ticket wins or not. If it does, I expect that it won't be too long before he's created a story that he believes to be true by which he came across the ticket legitimately (again, kind of like gollum and The Ring).
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Wait, so you know his name, number and where he lives. And that it was either one of the cops or him that took your wallet? ... You haven't told him / the cops, "uhm, I think you accidentally picked up my wallet? D'ya think I could have it back?"
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Well, I've asked the cops about it. They're the ones who said "nope, no sign of it; I'll bet it was the guy who hit you", and pointed out that he was in the back of the car right after me. They could have been lying, but they seemed fairly honest, so I doubt it pretty seriously. I'm a strange combination of paranoid and trusting, though, so I was pretty reluctant to believe that it was the guy who hit me either. It was only after I'd gone over all of the places where it could have fallen out/been dropped by me with a fine tooth comb that I finally conceded that the guy who hit me had probably taken it.
I thought about calling the guy and asking him if he'd seen it, but as the police and C both pointed out, if he's the type that would steal the wallet, there's virtually no chance that he would then say "oh, you mean this wallet? Sure, here you go" or anything like that.
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Give the guy a call and mention an award for the lost Wallet. If $50 or so is worth not having to replace all those cards, it might convince him to find it for you. Make sure if you do 1)meet someplace public. 2)make sure all the credit cards and info must be present to get the full reward.
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Not a bad idea Dan. I've already cancelled the cards and gotten a new driver's license (and the picture is actually better than the one I had before!), so I probably won't actually contact him, but it's a thought.
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quote: (and the picture is actually better than the one I had before!)
Nice!
[Edit: just to clarify -- not that I thought that your driver's license was gooberish before, especially as I have never seen your driver's license, or in fact any picture of you, except when you were hiding under 3 pounds of KISS makeup. Just nice in a serendipity way. (I know, I know -- you know. But still, it's the internet and all. ) ]
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Even better, I just found out that insurance is giving me about $1000 more than I actually paid for the car (and that's after my deductible is met).
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As a child, I once read that Shaker (or maybe Amish?) chairs were designed to be hung up over a chair rail on the wall, to prevent temptation into idleness during the workday. I sympathize with the obsessive over-deliberativeness of this -- once I start worrying about being offensive, it's hard to stop.
One could keep explaining and explaining and explaining ...
But one could also rely on friendship as a filter. Yeah, I'll do that. Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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quote:Even better, I just found out that insurance is giving me about $1000 more than I actually paid for the car (and that's after my deductible is met).
wow, you really got the good end of the deal!
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Yes, I did! A reply is on my list of things for today.
I've also come to like sculpture, although it's harder for me to find amateur works that I like. I've been hunting down links to some of my favorite well-known works online, and I wanted to explain to you in greater detail why they connected with me.
Today is my vege day. Soft comfy hooded blue sweater, baking pies, catching up on net stuff. Mmmm. All good treats.
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That's cool--no rush. I'll be interested to hear about the sculpture that you like. It's definitely the artistic medium, after writing, that touches me the most deeply. Somehow the detail on the foot in that statue of Polyphemus just took my breath away. It had the same effect on me as an incredible skyscape does, or a path heavily strewn with ginko leaves did the other day.
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Wow, Noemon, that really sucks. But at least you're handling it well. Hopefully something awesome will happen in the near future to offset the suck.
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quote:The title of this bronze refers to a fifteenth-century ballad by the French poet François Villon, in which an old woman laments her lost youth and beauty. ... This bronze figure is at first shocking; its subject, the change wrought by time on human flesh, resonates throughout Rodin's work. Of ugliness and age Rodin wrote, "What is commonly called ugliness in nature can in art become full of great beauty," emphasizing the transforming power of the artist.
There is grace in the curve of her shoulders, dignity in her bowed head. It's almost as if her flesh has melted away.
The piece reminds me of my mother's body in her last few months of life, although my mother was also missing her right breast. She had odd notions which sometimes were hard to accomodate. The hardest was for me to document her decline in photographs. She kept a pretty accurate written record of her last few months, detailing which pills she took and when, the nature of the pain, what she thought about and what consumed her. This she wanted me to illustrate with Polaroids of her naked body as she further declined. It was difficult. Now, the Helmet-Maker's Wife makes it easier to remember her, and I don't flinch when I see the photographs.
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quote:and I've got a rapidly healing friction burn on my wrist from the air-bag's deployment,
If only you had a friction burn on the other wrist as well. You could try different bandages and stuff and see which heals faster.
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I don't think I can see the curve of the foot in the jpg you sent (it seems cut off by the edge of the photo). I've been trying to hunt down a more complete image, as you have me intrigued.
We can continue this later on email, though. This may rank as my most far-afield derailment yet. Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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((CT)) That would have been...nearly impossible for me to do. I can't tell you how much I admire your strength. I'm glad that Rodin has been able to help you through the trauma of it.
You know, it's funny, but somehow I've always been able to see the ravages of age in the faces of the young. When I see people, in my minds eye I almost always also see how they'll look when they're ancient. It's not a voluntary thing, and it's stronger with some people than others, but it's usually there to some degree.
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I remember the first time I saw Rodin - I'd never seen anything so beautiful. It was a small table-top sculpture, and it pulled me from the other side of the gallery. It was the first time I truly loved a sculpture. I didn't see any again for a few years, but then I was in a small museum that had a remarkably beautiful sculpture in a very different style. It was one of many, but the only one I liked, and I hunted around for a plaque. There it is; ah, Rodin again. I think that makes it official. Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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It just about tore me apart. In some ways, this is now the easiest time of my life. I can't possibly let her down now -- I can't screw up my time with her, I can't fail to be strong for her. Amazingly, I'm coming back into my life with more strength than before. Peace, too.
Young faces seem blurry to me, unformed. I wish I had your knack of seeing what was to come. Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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quote:Hopefully something awesome will happen in the near future to offset the suck.
Yeah Mike, I kind of feel like that's going to happen. It just feels like things are going that way somehow.
quote:If only you had a friction burn on the other wrist as well. You could try different bandages and stuff and see which heals faster.
I know! What a missed opportunity! (kind of)
quote:We can continue this later on email, though. This may rank as my most far-afield derailment yet.
It's certainly up there, isn't it? Derailments like this don't just happen every day. If this were someone else's "here's a bad thing that happened to me" thread I'd never allow myself to derail it like this, but since it's mine I don't have to feel bad at all about it for even a second!
quote: I've been trying to hunt down a more complete image, as you have me intrigued.
I tried to find one myself when I sent you that message, but was unable to. I've seen good photos of it in various art history books, but none of them seem to be available online.
If you happen to find a picture of Odysseus carrying off the statue, do point me to it. It's another one that doesn't seem to be available online for some reason.
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Yeah kat, I had a very similar reaction to his work. Do other art forms affect you that way? For me, sculpture and writing are the only two that really capture me so completely, although architecture sometimes can (and the natural world does routinely).
For that matter, have you found any other artists in particular that have had that kind of magnetic pull for you? I'm always interested in hearing about really breath taking art.
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I can completely understand why you'd be feeling this peace and strength, CT. I'm incredibly happy for you that you're experiencing it, even if it is a bittersweet thing.
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CT: I know what you mean, though, about your mom. I miss my mother so tremendously, every day, but I remember with some guilt a feeling of... not needing to please anyone anymore. The advantage of having my dad's love but uninterest in my dreams is that there is no pressure to avoid dissapointing him - I can do whatever I want, and I'd only fail myself.
Noemon: The huge Tiffany stained-glass works. The first time I saw this one, I sat down on the ornamented stairs in front of the work for over half an hour, just looking at it. I have a poster of it in my living room. The picture doesn't convey the experience - the work is eleven feet by eight feet, and when illuminated from behind, it's amazing.
I'm trying to think what else does that to me - sometimes writing, but I need to be very solidly placed on firm, happy ground before I can let myself slip into literary ether; for some reason, it takes out my foundations. This is also why I don't write very much - it makes me crazy. Art is almost safer - I can look and appreciate, but since its still a foreign land for me, it's like I have one hand on the railing while leaning over Niagra Falls.
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Oh I love Rodin. When the Utah Museum of fine arts first opened two years ago, they had a Rodin exhibit. It is right here on campus and Rich and I went over a couple of times a week to study the sculptures. It was the first time I've really had the opportunity to study sculpture at my leasure.
There are really only two great sculpters (in my opinion) Michael Angelo and Rodin. There are other scuptures that intrigue me, but they all pale in comparison to these two.
On a side note, my first introduction to Rodin's Belle Heaulmie`re (The helmet makers wife) was from a Stan Rogers song called "Lies". Does anyone else here listen to Stan Rogers?
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Nope, never heard of him. What kind of music is it?
Rabbit, have you ever had the opportunity to see any Hellenistic Baroque sculpture? That style's masters were, to my eye, every bit as good as Rodin and Michaelangelo. The Laocoon is probably the most fameous Hellenistic Baroque sculpture.
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), but he didn't. He kind of reminded me of gollum, actually, in that circumstance had twisted him into something much less, and much more pathetic, than he might have been.
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