I was almost killed by a car yesterday. <\/p>
I\u2019m usually very careful crossing Roslyn Road, and I\u2019ve\nwarned many people about how dangerous it is. While I\u2019ve lived here it has gone\nfrom a quiet country road to a heavily trafficked four lane highway. But when\nthe pandemic came it reverted to very little traffic and perhaps, I got a bit\ncareless. Traffic has gradually returned. <\/p>
I decided to go for a walk last night later than usual,\nbecause it was so hot yesterday, about 8:30. While I walked in the quiet S\nsection I talked to my sister on the phone, and I was still talking to her as I\napproached Roslyn Road to return home. <\/p>
I looked both ways and saw no traffic coming. In the past we\nwould press the button to stop traffic, but it hasn\u2019t seemed necessary lately.\nAs I got half-way across, I saw someone pull into the driveway of the house on\nmy left, which is for sale. As that distracted me, along with still talking to\nmy sister, I began to continue crossing the far side of the street. <\/p>
Suddenly I heard a frantic horn and saw a speeding car about\n20 feet from me. I was square between the headlights and it was headed straight\nfor me. I immediately began to run toward the other side, but the car started\nveering toward me in that direction, attempting to avoid me. I don\u2019t think he\never hit the brakes. I managed to outrun it. It was traumatizing! About 2\nseconds had gone by. <\/p>
Standing on the other side of the road I saw the car slow\ndown, then speed ahead. I stood there for a while, realizing fully well that if\nthey had not hit their horn, I wouldn\u2019t have seen it at all, or if I couldn\u2019t\nstill run fast, I would simply be dead. The car was going so fast that death\nwas more likely than injury. But even though the car was speeding, it was 100%\nmy fault. <\/p>
Back in the house, I began to try to digest this trauma. Of\ncourse, I determined that from now on I wouldn\u2019t use the phone while crossing\nthe street and would start using the crossing button again. The problem with\nthat particular spot is that it is just beyond a small rise and I can\u2019t see\ncars coming from my right until they are fairly close. Sometimes I can hear\nthem coming, and ordinarily I quicken my pace as I cross the far side in case\nsomething is coming fast from my right. <\/p>
But that wasn\u2019t enough. I was still traumatized. I went\noutside again to look at the site of the near fatality but decided not to cross\nagain. <\/p>
I began to think about other times in the past that my life\nhad been threatened. One obvious one was when I had a heart attack 5 years ago.\nBut actually, I didn\u2019t realize how close to death I had come. I had a 100%\nblock from a blood clot in the LAD, the main artery out of the heart. <\/p>
But I never took it seriously. 20 years earlier I had\nangioplasty so I had an idea what a heart attack might feel like. I was playing\nin my table tennis league and said to my opponent, \u201cI\u2019m going to have to\ndefault. I\u2019m having a heart attack!\u201d Someone else said, not believing me,\n\u201cJerry, can you play me first?\u201d I had a young player drive me to the hospital.\nI somehow walked in. Then they said they didn\u2019t have a catheter lab, so they\ntook me by ambulance to another hospital where the doctor said he removed \u201cThe\nbiggest blood clot I ever took out of a heart.\u201d But I never thought I was going\nto die. <\/p>
I thought about car accidents. Once, a drunk, speeding driver,\nin the exact same spot on Roslyn Road, crashed into the back of my car as I\nbacked out of my driveway. It spun the car around 180 degrees and totaled it. I\ndidn\u2019t think I was going to die. I walked out of the car. But it did do some\ndamage to my spine, and six months later the disk ruptured, causing me the\ngreatest pain I\u2019d ever experienced. They had to put me in a stretcher and bring\nme by ambulance to the hospital. But I never thought I would die. <\/p>
One scarier moment was when the brakes on my car failed as I\nstarted to go down a big hill from my house in Starksboro. As I picked up more\nand more speed, I was worried I might crash into a tree and be seriously\ninjured. When I would see some brush at the side of the road, I would steer\nthrough it to slow it down and I did the same at the bottom, when the car came\nto a gradual halt. It was totaled from underneath. But I never thought I was\ngoing to die. <\/p>
I was once hit from the passenger site by another drunk\ndriver and was in about 5 or six other crashes over many years of driving. But\nI never thought I was going to die. <\/p>
The greatest tragedy and trauma of my life was when my\nyounger brother Bill died on a college outing in a canoe on Lake George when he\nwas only 20 years old. I can never forget the call I got from my father when I\nwas in college in Ohio. It was incomprehensible that this could happen, but it\ndid. The flight back was one long nightmare. I didn\u2019t fly again for ten years.\nEvery time I\u2019ve flown since then I simply expected the plane to crash and I always\nhave to fight that to fly. I think my father never got over it. My mother took\nas constructive approach as she could reaching out to any people she heard\nabout who had suffered a tragedy. <\/p>
In this covid era it\u2019s easy to think about death. And since\nmy heart attack I\u2019ve followed the radical diet of Dr. Joel Fuhrman, and I\u2019ve\nexercised and practiced table tennis a lot. None of that would have keep me\nalive if that driver hadn\u2019t honked his horn. <\/p>
I do remember one time, after my second heart procedure in\nin 1994, I woke up with some kind of pain in my chest. It went away, but I\nwrote this short poem:<\/p>
And then one morning you don\u2019t wake up.<\/p>
Everyone says how surprised they are.<\/p>
You would have been the most surprised, <\/p>
but nothing surprises you anymore!<\/p>
But my real philosophy was expressed in a long poem I wrote\nas part of a paper on freedom and self-determination. It is called \u201cFreedom and\nthe Moving I.\u201d The concept is that there really is no constant self. It is\nconstantly moving as time moves. So, we are continuously making our reality and\ndefinition of who we are. <\/p>
And finally, there is the essay my grandfather, Bill Blatt\nwrote, called \u201cFunerals are fun.\u201d<\/p>
It starts out, \u201cYou have the pleasant knowledge that this\nfuneral is not your own. If it is, you don\u2019t know it\u2026..\u201d We read it at his funeral. <\/p>
But for now, I think I\u2019m going to just press the crossing\nbutton, look both ways, not talk on the cellphone, and not cross after dark! <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was almost killed by a car yesterday. I\u2019m usually very careful crossing Roslyn Road, and I\u2019ve warned many people about how dangerous it is. While I\u2019ve lived here it has gone from a quiet country road to a heavily trafficked four lane highway. But when the pandemic came it reverted to very little traffic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[240],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.educationrevolution.org\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.educationrevolution.org\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.educationrevolution.org\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.educationrevolution.org\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.educationrevolution.org\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26123"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.educationrevolution.org\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26124,"href":"https:\/\/www.educationrevolution.org\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26123\/revisions\/26124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.educationrevolution.org\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.educationrevolution.org\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.educationrevolution.org\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}