When I think about blogging I get excited about having a conversation with others. Expressing ideas and rounding out understanding by the exchange of information and feelings. The good thing about the written page is you get to say everything you want to say without being interrupted. The bad thing about the written page is you might say everything you want to say without being interrupted.
Blogging for me is sort of a universal letter to someone who cares...assuming of course that someone cares enough to read what you write. Then there is the emotional roller coaster of "Will anyone read it? Will anyone respond to it? Will I hate or love what they might say?"
Making a blog work requires a two way street. One must blog and another one must read. Otherwise what is the point? If I am just writing to myself...well the idea of that is just sad. Of course I will continue to hold on to the idea that someone out there might respond to something I say. I would enjoy a stimulating conversation with honesty and candid ideas being exchanged, rather than just emotional rantings.
With that said, I will end this post so that I can get back to my life. I'll try to post something worth discussing within the next week.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
THANK YOU!
While driving through Duncanville, Texas on Interstate 20 yesterday afternoon, I was behind a semi in the center lane when I glimpsed a police car with it’s lights on in the right lane up ahead, presumably pulling someone over. I kept waiting to pass them before passing the truck but before that could happen I saw in my rearview another highway patrol car with lights on speeding up in the left lane. I decided there must be a wreck up ahead and that was why I hadn’t seen anyone pulled over yet.
When the officer passed me a red pickup pulled in behind him and I pulled in behind the red truck. When the cop cleared the semi in the center lane he pulled quickly to the right lane and got behind the first cop car I had seen. That is when I realized that the first cop was attempting to pull over a black SUV. I could tell in an instant that the SUV was not complying with the accepted rules of the road and that the two semi-trucks had been deliberately pacing one another to give the cop room to handle the situation. I decided to pace the two semi-trailer trucks that were in the right and center lanes and plug the hole to hold the traffic behind me back out of the way also. That way the officers could do their job and hopefully nobody would get hurt.
We were all traveling between 55 and 60 miles per hour and the people behind me couldn’t see what was going on and so were unhappy at the slow speed my little yellow Volkswagen was traveling in the fast lane. The large 4x4 pickup following me kept trying to intimidate me into moving out of his way. He would come up on my bumper, way too close, so that all I could see was grill in my rear-view mirror. I knew he was feeling very frustrated with me. I also knew he didn’t have a clue as to what was going on because he couldn’t see through the two semi-trucks.
After a few more miles and a couple on ramps, more cruisers joined the convoy, pulling onto the highway in front of me and the trucks but behind the SUV. Then up ahead about half a mile I saw the horizon was covered with tiny blinking lights. They quickly resolved into a roadblock with cruisers parked end to end effectively blocking the entire roadway and tire spikes across each lane. There were about a dozen cruisers now. The SUV finally pulled to the right shoulder about 15 feet short of the tire slicing unit in his lane and me and the other two trucks were about 30 yards behind that. Resulting in a front row seat for the show that was about to unfold.
The cops moved like ants spewing from a hill that had just been kicked, the instant the SUV stopped. They swarmed the immediate area around the SUV, each officer with their gun drawn. I watched them dancing closer to menace and then stepping back to observe. It was very intense. I couldn’t hear their words but I could tell they were yelling at the driver of the SUV. But the driver behind the tinted windows was not getting out.
It looked like a stalemate to me. The tension ratcheted up a notch and I realized for the first time that I myself was in some danger. The reason my view of the proceedings was so good was that I was in a little yellow Volkswagen only 100 feet from this drama. My other two comrades in arms who, with me, were holding back the hordes from getting in the way were sitting 15 feet up in the air inside their big semi-truck cabs. Stray bullets would have a harder time finding them way up there. All of a sudden I felt very vulnerable and wished I was sitting inside one of those big rigs instead of in my little bug.
The pickup behind me honked for me to move and I was flatly fed up with him, so I pulled sharply in front of the semi in the center lane and let the freak go. In his macho abandon he floored his accelerator and as he came around me, tires squealing, he caught sight of the road block and the tire spikes and braked so fast the van behind him was forced to begin to pull in front of me to avoid hitting his bumper. I figured the issue of my being too close to the action was now handled since the stupid pickup driver was now window to window with the SUV separated only by a single lane and could easily see all the guns and officers. And he had nowhere to go without ruining his tires so he just had to sit there with the proverbial egg on his face.
At that moment, as I pondered my now safer situation while I kept my eyes glued to the scene playing out in front of me, my phone rang and I nearly wet my pants. It was my son calling. I said something like, “Can’t talk now cops are everywhere.” And hung up on him. Right then, at some signal I couldn’t identify, all the doors of the SUV were yanked open at once and the officers were inside of the car yanking the driver out and subduing them to the ground! The officers surrounded the SUV so completely and quickly, I couldn’t tell if there was more than one person in the car or even if it was a man or a woman. I again was reminded of ants moving quickly with a single mind to attack.
Then it was over and half a dozen officers moved immediately away from the SUV and made a human line in the road in front of the now parking lot of commuters and began pointing at cars and directing them to drive through the now opening barricade.
As I drove slowly through the blockade of highway patrol cars I looked several of the officers in the eyes. The tension of the feelings caused by the situation still obvious on their faces. I thought about the men and women in uniform who put themselves on the line each and every day for you and me. You find them in situations like the one I just witnessed, in a burning building or maybe a foxhole in a desert skirmish on the other side of the world. These brave individuals rarely receive a thank you and just go about doing their job everyday, taking care of business.
So on behalf of strangers like me who want to shake your hand in gratitude for a job well and honorably done. THANK YOU!
When the officer passed me a red pickup pulled in behind him and I pulled in behind the red truck. When the cop cleared the semi in the center lane he pulled quickly to the right lane and got behind the first cop car I had seen. That is when I realized that the first cop was attempting to pull over a black SUV. I could tell in an instant that the SUV was not complying with the accepted rules of the road and that the two semi-trucks had been deliberately pacing one another to give the cop room to handle the situation. I decided to pace the two semi-trailer trucks that were in the right and center lanes and plug the hole to hold the traffic behind me back out of the way also. That way the officers could do their job and hopefully nobody would get hurt.
We were all traveling between 55 and 60 miles per hour and the people behind me couldn’t see what was going on and so were unhappy at the slow speed my little yellow Volkswagen was traveling in the fast lane. The large 4x4 pickup following me kept trying to intimidate me into moving out of his way. He would come up on my bumper, way too close, so that all I could see was grill in my rear-view mirror. I knew he was feeling very frustrated with me. I also knew he didn’t have a clue as to what was going on because he couldn’t see through the two semi-trucks.
After a few more miles and a couple on ramps, more cruisers joined the convoy, pulling onto the highway in front of me and the trucks but behind the SUV. Then up ahead about half a mile I saw the horizon was covered with tiny blinking lights. They quickly resolved into a roadblock with cruisers parked end to end effectively blocking the entire roadway and tire spikes across each lane. There were about a dozen cruisers now. The SUV finally pulled to the right shoulder about 15 feet short of the tire slicing unit in his lane and me and the other two trucks were about 30 yards behind that. Resulting in a front row seat for the show that was about to unfold.
The cops moved like ants spewing from a hill that had just been kicked, the instant the SUV stopped. They swarmed the immediate area around the SUV, each officer with their gun drawn. I watched them dancing closer to menace and then stepping back to observe. It was very intense. I couldn’t hear their words but I could tell they were yelling at the driver of the SUV. But the driver behind the tinted windows was not getting out.
It looked like a stalemate to me. The tension ratcheted up a notch and I realized for the first time that I myself was in some danger. The reason my view of the proceedings was so good was that I was in a little yellow Volkswagen only 100 feet from this drama. My other two comrades in arms who, with me, were holding back the hordes from getting in the way were sitting 15 feet up in the air inside their big semi-truck cabs. Stray bullets would have a harder time finding them way up there. All of a sudden I felt very vulnerable and wished I was sitting inside one of those big rigs instead of in my little bug.
The pickup behind me honked for me to move and I was flatly fed up with him, so I pulled sharply in front of the semi in the center lane and let the freak go. In his macho abandon he floored his accelerator and as he came around me, tires squealing, he caught sight of the road block and the tire spikes and braked so fast the van behind him was forced to begin to pull in front of me to avoid hitting his bumper. I figured the issue of my being too close to the action was now handled since the stupid pickup driver was now window to window with the SUV separated only by a single lane and could easily see all the guns and officers. And he had nowhere to go without ruining his tires so he just had to sit there with the proverbial egg on his face.
At that moment, as I pondered my now safer situation while I kept my eyes glued to the scene playing out in front of me, my phone rang and I nearly wet my pants. It was my son calling. I said something like, “Can’t talk now cops are everywhere.” And hung up on him. Right then, at some signal I couldn’t identify, all the doors of the SUV were yanked open at once and the officers were inside of the car yanking the driver out and subduing them to the ground! The officers surrounded the SUV so completely and quickly, I couldn’t tell if there was more than one person in the car or even if it was a man or a woman. I again was reminded of ants moving quickly with a single mind to attack.
Then it was over and half a dozen officers moved immediately away from the SUV and made a human line in the road in front of the now parking lot of commuters and began pointing at cars and directing them to drive through the now opening barricade.
As I drove slowly through the blockade of highway patrol cars I looked several of the officers in the eyes. The tension of the feelings caused by the situation still obvious on their faces. I thought about the men and women in uniform who put themselves on the line each and every day for you and me. You find them in situations like the one I just witnessed, in a burning building or maybe a foxhole in a desert skirmish on the other side of the world. These brave individuals rarely receive a thank you and just go about doing their job everyday, taking care of business.
So on behalf of strangers like me who want to shake your hand in gratitude for a job well and honorably done. THANK YOU!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
