A crash in the morning. A crash in the evening. Life!

Perhaps "S" and "U" and my parents will be surprised to know that I have not had oatmeal for a while now.  I am now on to a boiled egg and toast routine, to go with coffee.  Soon after breakfast and other morning routines, I was off, on my 100K drive to work.

It was a gorgeous spring morning.  Sunny and bright, with just a little bit of nip in the air.  I wanted to go off the road, and stop by the river, but I kept driving.  The gas station attendant commented "it is a beautiful vehicle" as he cleaned the windshield, and I was tempted to tip him just for that comment.

Even the radio was off throughout the drive--there were enough and more for the eyes, and plenty of thoughts in my mind.  I worried that my students might not be all that interested in the materials that I had scheduled for discussion.  I was thinking about the kind of videos that I could use as I came to a stop when the traffic light turned red.

From the left side of the intersection came an ambulance with its lights flashing, and it turned into the road that I was on and sped.  My light turned green and the ambulance that was ahead of me rushed through the traffic light where I had to stop again.  By now, my mind was completely off the class and the videos, and was preoccupied with the ambulance.  Suddenly, two police cars sped past me like the proverbial bats out of hell.  And then a fire engine followed.

A mile later, the entire traffic came to a complete stop. The lights from all those vehicles were flashing away.  After about nine minutes, the long line of cars and trucks slowly crawled past the crash site.  Two cars looked smashed--perhaps a head-on collision.  I hoped that there were no serious injuries and no fatalities.

The rest of the drive to campus was nothing but variations of my appreciation of the life I have.  That I could even enjoy a sunny spring day like today.

Before class time, I scanned the few web sites that I usually do, and oddly enough one essay that I read was "Is death bad for you?"

I thought I would check the news and got bummed out that Donna Summer had died.  Made me wonder all over again whether death was bad or good, and for whom it was good or bad.

After a relatively long day at work, I was back on the road, homeward bound.  Thoughts about life and death perhaps prompted me to take in as much as I could.  I took the longer route home in order to enjoy the scenery, and picked up a flowering pot from a nursery.

About three miles away from home, a sign by the slow lane flashed "crash ahead."  It felt really, really, strange that my day was bookended by crashes.

While here I am blogging about it, I wonder what happened to those who were involved in the crashes.  I hope they will be ok soon enough to enjoy life.

Walking by the river was especially soothing today.  The sight of dogs wagging their tails, kids trying out the words they learnt, adults pondering life, and birds not caring for anything.

Life!