Not Just Another Journey

…the journey started like any other of my monthly NY-PA journeys, during the winter months:  snow in the air but clear roads. I’ve done this drive one way almost 200 times; back and forth monthly since March 2006. That would be over 6 ½ years, 80 months, 360 miles a trip for a total of 57,600 miles, and I’m being a little conservative in my estimate, since there have been a few times where I’ve done the drive twice in a month. The drive is mainly four-lane freeways, and I general follow one of two possible routes, outlined on the map below.

The “green” route is my preferred route – less traffic and more scenic, as it travels through the hills of the southern Finger Lakes in NY and the mountains of Northern PA. The “yellow” route is my “poor weather route”, as it is more heavily traveled, and along the NY Thruway and PA Turnpike, which generally plows and salts their roads with more frequency than the other State DOT-maintained roads. I’ve resorted to the “yellow” route maybe 30 times out of the 200. The difference, time wise, between the two is just about the same – the drive takes 5-6 hours in good weather and traffic. The longest one of these trips has taken was 8 hours, back in 2009, in the spring when I was caught in accident-delayed traffic not once, not twice, but three times on the same trip.

In the winter months, there are several factors that go into which route I take, and whether I go at all. Thanks to technology, I can get real-time road conditions and accident reports on 511NY.org and 511PA.org. I won’t travel a road that is already snow-covered for a significant distance, where the temperatures are below 25 degrees, at the time I am ready to leave, and I won’t travel a road that is expecting several inches of snow during my drive. In the past 80 months, I have had to cancel the drive twice, and I have driven on snow covered roads, where it wasn’t accurately predicted or shown, three other times; those times, the accumulation was light. I do travel with a winter-emergency kit that does include an extra blanket, a shovel, salt, jumper cables, flares, etc. 

An Additional Thought On The Newtown CT Tragedy

The Newtown CT story, and the related conversations, are still front and center in a lot of minds. There is a lot of dialogue out there, and as I’ve declared in the past, dialogue for the most part is good. I hope that the dialogues that are occurring lead to positive change in all of the directly and indirectly-related topics of conversation.  In my opinion, the best source of healing after something like this is positive change; some sort of validation that maybe this event could possibly mean something besides pain and suffering.

So, this morning, I woke up at 5AM with a series of recollections below, about an event that affected my family. 

When I was eight, my dad introduced my family to his the family of one of his co-workers. This family consisted of a mom and dad (my dad’s co-worker) and their four year old son. Soon, the families spent a few evenings together in the way that play dates used to be:  the adults all hung out together in one room with their social time, while all of the kids played in the other room. 

Growing up with two sisters, I was very excited to have another little boy to play with. For me, this boy was like the little brother I didn’t have at the time. I have a specific memory of an old wooden toy train set. I had started to out-grow that set. My parents convinced me to give that toy to him, and he instantly loved it. I remember playing with that toy train with him, and even at that young age, I remember feeling a little proud that I gave something of mine to someone who thought it was special. I don’t remember how long our families spent together; but I don’t think it was more than a year.

One fall night, my dad came home from work, and said we needed to have a family meeting. He proceeded to tell us that this little boy and his dad were killed in an accident; they were hit by a drunk driver. I have seen my dad cry only four times in my life – that was the first. We all cried for what I think was a half hour; maybe longer, maybe shorter. I vaguely remember my parents trying to explain death, and what it means, and it was all very (expectedly) difficult to deal with. I don’t remember how long things seemed empty, or how long it took for life to return to routine, but it did, as life inevitably seems to do. 

Fast forward ten years:  I came home on a college break, and when I walked in the door, sitting on the couch was this boy’s mom. I hadn’t realized that she had eventually moved to Michigan, but on this day, she was back in the area, visiting old friends and the grave site. I do remember that there was a local newspaper article (which I made a copy of and still have to this day) discussing what had happened, and between reading the article, and the related conversation with her and my parents, I found out that the story was even more tragic then what I (and my sisters) were told ten years before. 

The tragedy was not that they both died in a car accident. The father kept him out of school and drove to Atlantic City.  After a day at the beach, they checked into a hotel, and when the boy fell asleep, the father killed his son with several stab wounds  He then stabbed himself, but was not able to fatally.  The next morning, he drove back home, where, by that point, the mom had gone to police and a search was underway.  The police recognized the car, and they were taken to the hospital.  The father did have a fake story to tell, but soon ended up telling the truth of what happened and turned himself in.

I was stunned.  But once I read the article, it was back to the conversation in my parents' living room.  The mom then talked about the healing process, and how it led to her teaching in an elementary school, and starting to do some very important and inspiration work with kids. The whole point of her story, and I believe her visit, was how she was able to turn such a tragedy into something positive and real, and it was, and is, an inspiration story that needed to, and needs to, be shared.

And that stuck with me, from that moment in 1991. And that resurfaced this morning in the wake of this recent tragedy. The two tragedies have some similarities, and some differences, and I don’t want to get into a listing of those.

So, in thinking about writing this, and trying to double-check my recollection, I found where she wrote a kid’s book dealing with this tragedy, and a related interview with her, in the magazine of the college (Northwestern College) where she received the Distinguished Alumni Award in 1991 for Distinguished Service to Humankind. The links are below.  I’ll let the interview tell the rest of the story and speak for itself. 

BUT...tragedies happen and will continue to happen; it’s unfortunately a fact of life – a harsh fact that I wish didn’t have to be the case. It’s what we do with those tragedies that can change us and help us get to a place where, in moments like these, is hard to imagine being possible. 

• Link to the Northwestern College interview:  http://classic.nwciowa.edu/summer2008/transcript 
• Amazon.com link to her book, Forever Friends: Amigos para Siempre (Volume 1): http://www.amazon.com/Forever-Friends-Amigos-Siempre-Volume/dp/097416111X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1355840794&sr=8-1&keywords=Christina+McGrinson

My Thought On The Newtown CT Tragedy

As with most people, as the events of this tragic event began to unfold by way of the various news reports and the ensuing conversations, tweets and Facebook comments, I found myself initially stunned at what I was hearing. Soon after that initial pause, I had a single thought, which is still crystal clear to me, but in my opinion seemed to be an under-current at best in this story. That single thought is compelling me to write.

But before I get to that – first and foremost, and even though this may go without saying, it still needs to be said – my sympathies go out to ALL that have been affected by this. I struggled with this as a part-time parent (and I say part-time, as I am 5 ½ hours away from my 5 ½ year old son), going through all of the what-ifs that naturally come out of an event like this. I did call my little guy, and it was comforting to hear his voice laughing away. Fortunately, he was unaware of what happened; my ex-wife decided to keep it that way, and I agreed. I can’t imagine what it must be like to be a parent in that school, and I won’t try to guess.

Now, onto my single thought...

December - Month Of Giving? Or Giving!

My last five posts were about the month of November being declared the “month of thanks.” I’m surprised that no one has declared December as the “month of cheer”, or the “month of good tidings”.  It seemed like a good idea to me, when that idea hit my brain, so I decided that maybe I should start it. I figured, maybe one post a week, for a total of four posts for the month of December, should probably do it.

Well, it’s December 13^th. Two weeks in. No posts.

And it’s not that there isn’t anything to cheer about, to be glad about. This is the time of year where people start giving “in the spirit of the holidays”. This is the time of year where random groups of people appear seemingly out of nowhere and start singing, as I witnessed in the Williamsport, PA Panera Bread last year, and as I witnessed in the (Rochester) Skyway this week. It’s the time of year where random acts of kindness are much less random and much more prevalent.

BUT…I find myself fighting this pull of negativity that occurs at this time of year.  I have to ignore the whole political-correctness debate about whether one should use the word “holidays” instead of the word Christmas. WHICH – my stance is this:  anyone who says “Happy Holidays” has good intentions and is trying to be safe, and can’t that be enough? Who gets offended by good-intentioned well wishes? Or the even worse, the poor-attempt-at-humor catch-all Christmakwanzakah?

November - Month Of Thanks: Days 19-30

In my daily virtual roaming in the world of Facebook, a few people have taken part in what I think is a growing tradition or trend:  during the month of November, the month of Thanksgiving, people are taking a moment each day of the month and state something that they are thankful for. 

Well, it’s December. I did well, at first…four posts covering 18 days, and I actually was ahead of schedule. And then…

…I took a vacation. (#19)