Saturday, October 29, 2011


Write on My Blog -     BaBYbOOmERs RaNt

I have been working on this Blog post for months, a little here, a little there, soooooooo here tis!

Okay October is almost over and my last post on this blog was, well okay,.... according to Blogger it’s been since 6/30/11!!   Nah.......that's just not possible!


Wait...........but I did sorta-kinda post, well okay,it was a draft post that I never got around to posting.  I was planning on it being a post, once I got it done. LMBO, never got ‘around 2 it’ as you can plainly see!  


However, I really had started a new post, (as a draft), on 8/16/11.  You see, July 22nd was my Birthday, and I was going to write something about that. But, then I realized, Hm?! What is there to say, really? Absolutely nothing.



I turned 62,this past summer, but truthfully, July 22nd just went by like all the other days. No presents, no cards, no birthday cake. Soooo, it really doesn’t count right?  I mean really, what is there to write about anyway?  So I had a birthday go by...big freaking deal!  Sixty-two years ago, on July 22, 1949, I came out of my Mother’s womb. I cannot say I have really accomplished much with my life since. 


Well, okay, at least I got through High School before I went and got myself pregnant.


No, no, do not get the wrong impression. As I have said before, I do not regret having my children. I love them both with all my heart! What I do regret is not having planned my life a little better, and I regret not going to College. 


But, as we all know,.....shit  (things) just happen. I was very young, and very impressionable, naïve, and dying to get out from under my Father’s thumb, ‘so to speak’. My father was a very domineering, very controlling man. Hm? An awful lot of verys’ in there huh.


Yes, I have two beautiful (adult) children, whom I love with all my heart. I also now have 7 grandchildren through marriage. I wish I could hug them all...ALL the time, so that they would know how much I love every one of them. 


Since that is not possible, considering hubby and I live almost 700 miles away, we visit one another as often as is possible. Considering the cost of gasoline, that has not been quite as often as I would like.


Okay, I had a birthday, but that was just another day to me. Nothing exciting about it, nothing monumental. However, since my birthday I have had some quite ‘eventful’ days. One in particular stands out with me. 

It was another beautiful day in South Carolina.


The afternoon of September 28th, I was making a quick trip to the drug store to pick up prescriptions that were ready for me. I was patiently waiting in line at a traffic light to cross the intersection of a major Hwy that comes into Myrtle. 


I was about the third car in the line. My seatbelt was secure, and I had put the car in park, mainly because I knew that the light had not been red for very long, and that those particular lights tend to be very long-winded. It is usually close to 7 minutes long, considering it intersects a major Hwy, I suppose that is to be expected. 


Anyway, I was sitting there minding my own business, when all of a sudden I HEAR and FEEL vehicles bombarding my little Dodge Caliber. My car literally vibrated like a tuning fork, but in actuality, barely moved. The glass in both my driver’s side window and the front passenger side window exploded inward and went all over the inside of my car! 


It seemed to go on forever, but it was really over in a matter of seconds. When the bombardment finally stopped, the vehicle that had been sitting in the left turn lane on my drivers side, was turned on its side. It had been slammed up against the left side of my car, while the vehicle that hit that car lay halfway on top of mine, with its rear wheels sitting on the top of my car, and its front end resting on the pavement on the right side of my car.

I never saw it coming!  


It was WHAM, BAMB!! .....and I was stuck right in the middle! I looked on my left, and all I could see was the roof of the vehicle that was sitting in the left side lane, while on the right side all I could see was the bottom of the vehicle that had gone over the top of mine. Then, I started to see the smoke gathering, and smell the pungent odor of gasoline. 


The first thing I thought to do was to turn off my vehicle, which I did immediately. It was already in PARK. I unfastened my seat belt, and looked around the inside of my car to assess my odds of getting out of it without causing myself injury. There were shards of glass from the windows in every crevasse and all over the front and back seats. 


Getting out through my driver’s side door was not an option, since there was a vehicle smashed up against it. On the other side, the other vehicle’s rear wheels were resting on the right top of my car, while its front end was resting on the pavement. I remember thinking, good God! What could have caused this mess!!


I wanted out of my car, and it looked like the only way out was to go in between the front and the backseats and through the left side passenger door, which was really my only way out. I started to get up to crawl over the console and to the backseats, when I heard several people yelling at me to stay put, not to move, as I could be injured and not know it.



Well, I sat there for a moment listening to people telling me to stay in my car, but then that smell of gasoline, and the smoke alarmed me enough to take the chance of moving. So, I climbed over the console and between the seats, to crawl out the back door. 


Once I was out of the car, I had people all around me taking hold of my arms and helping me off to the side of the road. I was not injured, amazingly, but my legs were definitely shaky. I was just in total shock. 



I soon discovered that one of the people that was there with me, was a nurse from one of the local Hospitals. She had me sit down in the grass off to the side of the road until someone from the emergency crew could check me out. 


Apparently she had been in one of the cars sitting behind me, and she had seen the whole accident. She told me that a Dump Truck changed lanes right at the light, and forced another car to veer off the road, crashing into the vehicle on my driver’s side, and then over mine.


Pictures of the scene shortly after the emergency crews arrived.


Overhead view of the scene.


My little red 'Dodge Caliber' was the one in the middle of that mess!!


To this day, when I look at these pictures, I ask myself the same question. How on earth did I escape it without so much as a scratch! 


All I know is..........I feel very lucky to have done so. I can only assume that my Caliber was a pretty darn sturdy little vehicle.  I will miss my little car soooooo very much!