My Car and Christian Century
Well, my streak of not being in a car accident since 1979 ended Friday with a bang, so to speak. I was waiting to turn left at an intersection when a man in a pickup suddenly gunned his engine and roared backwards, trying to correct a bad turn that had left him stranded with his tires against a curb. I hit my accelerator and was trying to honk the horn when he smashed into our minivan, crushing the driver’s side sliding door and rear panel. Luckily, none of my kids were in the car.
The guy was real nice. He apologized repeatedly, admitted that it was his fault, and his insurance agent called me within two hours of the accident. They took my statement and are not contesting that he is solely at fault.
You know what’s weird? While we were talking to the police officer who just happened to drive by about 15 seconds after the collision, my neck was starting to hurt a little, but I didn’t want to say anything about it. I was sort of listening to the cop and the man and at the same time trying to gauge the soreness in my neck. I had full movement without sharp pain, so I felt pretty sure that it was just routine soreness and was no big deal. And I didn’t want to say anything because I didn’t want these people to think I was the sort of person who can’t wait to put on a neck brace after he’s had an accident.
I don’t know if there really are people like that, but on TV there are. On TV there are these people who pretend they hurt their necks to get money somehow. And for some reason I was embarrassed that these total strangers might think I was like one of those TV guys. Later my neck stopped hurting anyway, so it must have been no big deal.
My van is a 1997 Chrysler Town and Country that I bought two years ago. We’re just a few months away from paying it off, so I really hope they don’t tell me it’s totaled. I only owe a few hundred dollars on the vehicle, so we'll be fine. It’s a very good thing if you owe less than your car is worth!
We got a free rental car, so things are cool. We’ll find out Monday or Tuesday what’s going to happen.
In other news…
Christian Century accepted an essay of mine which should go online at their website on Monday or Tuesday. I think it's going to be called, “If It Was a Mountain I Saw.” The essay was inspired by a dream I had in Colorado after I took a trip into the mountains. I woke up in the middle of the night with this phrase in my head: “If I could live that hard I would write so high.”
I loved the sound of that, so I wrote it down and jotted some notes about the trip to the mountain, vowing that it would become an essay some day with that phrase as the title. That was almost two years ago.
Unfortunately, as the essay developed it moved away from that phrase, and I ended up dropping it, very reluctantly. It's hard to let go of a phrase that you like, but it had to be done.
Check back Monday or Tuesday. I’ll have a link to it.
Peace,
rlp
7:52:52 PM 
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