Today's rant

While backing out of a parking slot at the East End grocery store this morning, I looked left just in time to see a black car entering the lane, from the WRONG WAY even though all parked cars were opposite the driver’s direction of travel, and the lane was plainly marked ONE WAY in yellow letters on the black asphalt.

I stopped; the other driver stopped, but he didn’t look at me. He backed up. I figured he would take a lane marked in the direction of travel, but he stopped after giving me just enough room to get by. Then, he started forward, headed for the WRONG WAY lane.

My window was down, and I said, “It’s still the wrong way! (Pause) D—k!”

All that reminded me of an incident around 30 years ago, another example of Why People Should Listen to Bob.

It was a Sunday in Sulphur Springs, Texas, just before noon. My family walked from the church building, to our car. Priscilla and I got the kids buckled in, and as we were getting in the car I heard a large engine revved loudly. I looked up as a young man backed his pickup from a parking slot, then sped down the parking lane, leaving rubber as he drove around the back of the building. I thought, “I should go cut him off and have a talk with him. But I would have to speed across the parking lot, and that would mean I’m doing the same thing he’s doing.” The pickup appeared from behind the building and sped to a front exit.

I said to Priscilla, “Somebody needs to talk to him.”

She agreed, saying, “He’s liable to run over a kid.”

Next Sunday we were all in the car and I had the motor started when the same young man did the same thing – revved his engine and sped toward the back of the building. I eased across the lot and parked in the lane he was coming up. I got out and walked to his pickup. His window was down.

“What?” he said.

I said, “You need to slow down. There are kids here and you never know when one might run in front of you.”

He just grinned and gave me a F--- you look and revved his engine.

Next Sunday morning I was sitting in a pew. A woman came up from behind me and stopped beside me. She said, “You need to take care of your own children and leave other people’s kids alone.” She walked off.

I asked Priscilla if she knew the woman. Priscilla said it was the grandmother of the young man.

Several weeks later, around supper at home, Priscilla said, “Do you remember that boy you talked to about speeding on the parking lot?” I said I did, and that he didn’t speed any more.

“Well,” she said, “he was killed in a traffic accident last night.”

He was speeding, she said, and failed to make a curve on Highway 24. He ran off the road and into a ditch. He was dead at the scene.

I wondered what his grandmother had to say about that.