The last pick-up line that came by me was, and I quote: "I have rabies, but just one shot left to go." I promise that is the truth. I inquired with two seperate men who know the perp, and they both agree that, coming from this older man, it was, indeed, a pick-up line. How sad is that?! Now, "I want to check you for ticks" (like Brad Paisley's song) would work on me, 'cause I'd be laughing my butt off! And I've always been a sucker for a man who could make me laugh.

"One killed, three seriously injured in Aug. 8 accident; driver charged"

That's the headline in yesterday's local paper.

The driver of the pickup truck was trying to negotiate a sharp curve at a high rate of speed. He lost control, ran off of the pavement, and over-corrected. That sent the truck skidding sideways across the road, where it slammed into a pine tree. The driver was ejected from the truck, and walked a mile to a house to call for help.
All four of our EMS units were on the scene, and it took one hour and three minutes to cut the three passengers out of the wreckage.

One passenger has both arms and legs broken, a lot of swelling and pain, and is an induced coma. They may wake her up today or Friday.
Another passenger has broken legs and facial fractures, a steel rod in his spine, and a steel rod in his right leg. He has to have someone with him 24 hours a day. He may walk again, he may not.
The driver has a broken foot, and three broken bones in his spine. He has been charged with driving under the influence, driving too fast for conditions, driving while license suspended, failure to maintain lane, reckless driving and homicide by vehicle, first degree.
The young man who died was the driver's best friend. He had a fiance and a daughter is to be born on or around November 6. He was excited about becoming a father.

You may be saying: "Well, it happens all the time."

You're right, God help us, it does.

BUT:

The girl who is in a coma is 17. The passenger who may never walk again is 18. The driver is 18, and no doubt will do time. The young man who will not see the birth of his daughter just turned 18 last month. My daughter, the one I refer to as Youngest here on the Stream, knew all three of the boys. Buddies since elementary school.

What part of 'don't drink and drive' do we not understand?

Unbeknownst to me, whilst cleaning my parent's house with the help of Youngest, a storm rolled over my little town yesterday.
   Mom and Dad live about eight, maybe nine miles out in the country.   We were out there to do some chores and a cleaning-up--------I have taken my parent's to raise.
   We had heard some thunder and it looked like we might luck out and get some rain.   According to my Daddy's thermometer it was 105 degrees.   Well, it rained pretty hard for a little while, no big deal.   Lots of wind, but not bad.   The temperature dropped to 75 degrees in less than an hour, and it was nice on the porch.
   T-Bird called me and told me that we had gotten hit pretty hard in town, and that half of my neighbor's fence was blown over, a very tall wooden privacy fence.   The posts snapped off at the ground.   The family behind us had a large screen-house in the back yard that is now tied around a pine tree.   Two trampolines blew into a small shed down the block.   We only had two pieces of underpinning that blew askew, but they snapped back into place.   T. said that it shook our place pretty hard, and the neighbor's daughter said it felt like her trailer was coming off of the blocks, it shook so hard.   Their place blocked ours from a lot of the wind.   But all in all, at least for us, no real harm done.   We are thanking the Father for this one.
   Because on the road a block away, There is a pond, complete with dam.   On the pond side of the dam is a pine tree.   Big pine tree.   On the other side of the dam is a trailer.   The trailer is so close to the dam that when you step off of the back-door steps, within another three or four feet, you start to go up the side of the dam.   I would not live there if it was rent-free.
   Back to the pine tree.   The pine is directly opposite of the trailer.   The tree fell, and it literally cut the trailer in two.   T-Bird said he didn't think the family was hurt.   And I certainly hope not, they have several young children.
   In town, several vehicles at the Ford place were damaged, and it blew over or broke off half of the new signs that the county just put up.   Micky D.'s is down to one arch.   The roof blew off of the hardware store and it piled up against an auto parts store.   Two tractor-trailers blew over on the by-pass.   That was pretty close to my house.   My boss lost some big limbs and part of her fence.   If there was a dead or weak limb in the county, it has come down, and trees are down everywhere.   And one of the towers at the airport blew over, so that will be T-Bird's first order of business at the plant tomorrow.   It will be good for him.   Out at the plant where my daughter, son-in-law, and my son's girlfriend work, along with my ex and his wife, it blew the gravel off of the top of the building and THAT took out several windshields in the parking lot.
  Lines down all over the place.    Traffic lights out.

Well, my beloved checked out the weather on the computer when it all calmed down and the power came back on.   A second line of storms was coming, and he said he didn't want to hang around for that one and he was on his way out to my parent's house. 
   He called right back with his tracfone.   He was locked out.   He had left his keys in the house.  

I'm picturing Dorothy in The Wizard Of Oz: 

"Auntie Em, Auntie Em!"   Stomping on the storm cellar door, Toto and basket in her arms, tornado comin' at 'er.   (We don't have a Toto, and at the time, I'm sure T.'s mind wasn't on our cats.   And he would look ghastly in gingham!)

   But he had called my son, and he was coming with a key.   I had given a house key to each of the kids just in case they needed to get into the house for anything, months ago.   We hung up.   Then I remembered the key I had hidden outside.   I called him back, and he canceled the 911 to my son.
   The second line of storms missed us, thankfully, and the kid's didn't suffer any damage.   I haven't heard of anyone badly hurt or killed.

This town has several sons and probably a daughter or two serving in Iraq.   They were watching the weather on-line, and they tried to call their families here.   If they could not get through to their people, they called the Sheriff's Office, and the Police Dept..   They went right out and did welfare checks on several families for soldiers.     
   I don't often agree with our local law enforcement, and I will be the first in line to vote the Sheriff out of office, or, better yet, run him out of town.   And some of our boys in blue need to  go into another line of work.   The county doesn't always respond to every-day problems like maybe they should, and all of our services need improvement.   But when we have a bad storm, or some sort of melt-down, these people always come through.   Last year a tornado obliterated one area, with several homes completely destroyed.   As soon as it was humanly possible they were on the scene, with the tornado still in sight.   I gotta respect that.

Monday afternoon I was standing on the front porch with a cigarette and my son-in-law, who came outside with me for goodness-only-knows-why. Probably to escape the house that was full of women and little girls. It was getting a little later in the evening, but there was still good light out. We were just shooting the breeze, with me leaning against the porch rail, and him leaning against the side of the trailer.
All of a sudden, a large shadow passed right over my head, and this HUGE bird, I'm guessing a fully-grown hawk, dropped down right in front of my face, flew past my s.i.l., dipped low over the porch steps and skimmed over my rose bushes. I could see his back and wings, it was that low! Then it flew on across the yard, went up over the neighbor's wooden fence, and dropped down into her yard. I'm guessing almost three feet across from wing tip to wing tip.
I tried to play it cool. I asked my son-in-law, who was just staring at me, "Did you just see a big-ass bird?" He replied that yes, indeed, he HAD seen a big-ass bird. That made me feel some better. At least I was not the only one who saw it.
He said it just appeared over my head, and he was guessing that it was diving at my head, or my hand that was holding my smoke. He said the bird's legs were against it's body, that the talons were not stretched out. The silly thing could have knocked me over the rail if he had a notion to grab at my head. If it had decided that my brown head was some sort of fat rabbit, he could have done some damage! I have no idea what the creature was thinking, or what changed his mind about grabbing my head. Maybe I looked to mangie to fool with. Or too gamie to eat. It probably looked like road kill.

I'm not the only one who has had a close encounter of the raptor type. There was one man who had a fur cap plucked off of his head by a large hawk while out hunting. I knew the old fart, (R.I.P.), and have wished many a time that he'd gotten the old coot's head. Imagine the surprise when that hawk's freshly caught meal turned out to be an empty lunch sack!
One buddy was sitting in his deer stand in the evening. It was quiet, and he was in his full look-like-a-bush-'cause-it's-deer-season regalia. He had one of those face masks that leave the mouth and some of the nose exposed, and he sported a full mustache. He told my husband and friends that he noticed a small dot up in the sky and as he watched, the dot kept getting bigger and bigger, and as it got closer and closer he realized that it was a hawk headed straight for him! Just before it got to his face he came out of his trance and threw up both arms in front of him, still holding his rifle. The hawk then pulled up out of the dive and shot straight up into the wild blue.
They say that these birds of prey have fantastic vision, but they don't seem to be able to distinguish between a squirrel and a cheesy mustache real well.
One old boyfriend of mine had a similar experience with an owl. His mustache was even cheesier.

Maybe I need to do something different with my hair..........................................or just stay off of the porch.

Hair by Birth Canal:

After a quick clean-up, VOILA!


I give you Possum! She looks a little less bumfuzzled in these pics that were swiped from yet another grandma.