February 3, 2003
DOWN HOME:
Car & fence fight to battered draw
___Our old family sedan fought our backyard fence to a gap-toothed, black-eyed draw.
___When it was over, the fence was battered but unbowed. The car was bruised but unbending.
___In the aftermath of the Rally by the Alley, I replaced 11 wooden slats in the northwest corner of the fence. And our friendly local auto mechanic replaced the casing around the car's front driver-side blinker signal light. Both combatants now are back to form.
___All totalled, the incident cost us less than $100, and it very well may have taught Molly an invaluable lesson.
MARV KNOX
Editor
___Molly is our 16-year-old daughter, a pretty good driver, but still quite new behind the wheel. At her direction, the car took out the fence slats, but the fence exacted its toll, too.
___Of course, I noticed right away. When I pulled into the driveway after a day of work, I saw splintered wood and a patch of my backyard where I usually saw the northwest corner of our fence. Upon closer inspection, I also found shattered bits of a blinker signal light casing.
___Molly feared I'd be angry. But I couldn't get mad for two reasons: (A) This looked like a relatively inexpensive opportunity for her to learn an important driving lesson, and (B) I'd done much worse when I was about her age.
___My accident involved two drunken cowboys, neither of whom was me, a speeding pickup, a stop sign, the front bumper of my 1967 Plymouth Valiant and quite a bit of insurance money.
___The cowboys were going too fast, and the first thing they did when their truck skidded to a stop was throw all their beer cans into the grassy field nearby. The state trooper measured their skidmarks and acknowledged they were going too fast. But he looked at the crash site and told me that cars always should come to a halt behind, not past, the stop sign.
___Mostly, I said, "Yessir" and "Nosir" and "It'llneverhappenagainsir."
___I worried that I would "get it" when Daddy came to pick me up. As a parent now, I realize he was so thankful I wasn't hurt and didn't hurt anybody that he couldn't get around to being mad.
___That wreck made me a better driver. Twenty-nine years later, I resolved to turn Molly's clash with the fence into a learning experience.
___I showed her scrape marks on the fence and how she should've known she was turning into the boards. We talked about turning radiuses and looking where you're driving. We talked about how a car always moves faster than you think it's moving. And we talked about how she had to pay for that light casing. Later, I prayed that she'd be more aware and careful.
___Thank God for the minor scrapes of life, the "learning experiences" that teach us and prepare us for even greater challenges.
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