Some words just do not go together.

There are some words that should not be uttered and some that should never be said out loud and then there are the ones that when linked together strike fear in my heart.  Son.  That is a good word.    Pueblo County Sheriff alone is descriptive.  Now link those all in one sentence and it becomes a very scary sentcnce to a mother at home alone especially when I have caller ID  which comes up "Pueblo County" at 6:30 PM.  Got to be a solicitation call or...
Ring! Ring!
"Hullo?"
"Lou Mercer?"
"Yes."
"Ms. Mercer, this is deputy Lile with the Pueblo County Sheriffs office and I am here with your son."
Now being a mother who has managed to raise 6 kids alone and not have any of them incarcerated for a felony, been the instigator of a stand off,  jailed for DUI, or any of the other things you read about or hear on the news I consider myself beyond blessed.  But far in the back of my mind is always that I am one phone call away.  Thank God this woman kept talking because my heart had already stopped.
"He is fine, but his car has quit working.  He was going to walk to the Walmart and call you, but I am giving him a ride as it is a long walk.  He wants to talk to you.  Here."
And I talked to him and I hopped in the car to pick him up and deliver him to Florence.

Now, to get to the irony of this little story I must back up to a few days prior to this phone call.  I hopped in my car to run up to the highway to Jackie's shop where I do seamstress work.  Every other corner out here in the county is a 4 way stop.  I was turning right on 25th Lane so I made what is known as a "California stop".  Now you all know what that is and how it works.  You can see for miles.  No one is coming so you just apply the brake and before you actually stop, you are around the corner.  There is a stop, but if one blinks an eye, they might miss it.  Apparently the deputy watching from wherever blinked.

To make a long story short very soon I had red lights in my mirror.  As luck would have it I found both the registration and insurance card along with my drivers license.  I am sure that surprised her! I know it surprised hell out of me.  She was very polite and nice and I am sure that she did not know I had NEVER been stopped before.  She made it very easy and when she brought back my papers she gave me her card.  She was Officer Lile with the Pueblo County Sheriff.

I found Bret right where he said he would be outside of Walmart.  I explained to him how the county sheriff calling me gave me a start.  At that point he informed me he was no longer a child and if he was doing something wrong they would just cuff him and put him in the back seat and he would have to make his own bail.  But mother's minds work in a strange way.

Back to the coincidence of Officer Lile being in two places with Mercers just a few days apart.  When I saw how far Bret would have had to walk to get to a phone I was even more grateful to Officer Lile for giving him a ride.  He works in a grow, so I am sure he smelled to high heaven of weed.  I know he was tired and the last thing he wanted to do was a death march to a phone and then deal with the car that night.  I am sure there are officers who would not have let him in the car, but she did and I have got to give a big Lou Mercer shout out to her.

I know police work is hard, dangerous and at times not very rewarding, but if anyone out there knows this woman I would like you to tell her how much my son and I appreciate her taking the time out of her day to do a good deed.  I am sure I will see her again some day because that is how angels are.

Keep right except to pass and do not pass in an intersection on a country road.

A couple days ago I was coming home down South Road and driving my usual 40 MPH in the 35 MPH speed zone.  Actually my speedometer is off by a couple digits, so I was driving about 38MPH.  There is a stop sign on 25th Lane and 27th Lane has a "widow maker" dip.  See out here this is how we control water. The dip is so water on the road has a way to get off the road so my car does not flood out.  I slow down so my car does not bounce.

Let me tell you about the history on this dip.  Our mailbox is on the North side of the road.  It is about 1/2 a city block from the dip.  When we first moved out here and the dip was new we lost our mailbox 2 times because people neglected to slow for the dip, became airborne and wiped out our mailbox.  The dip is clearly marked so over the years people have learned to slow down at that corner.  They also have the added attraction of seeing long black marks where brakes are applied very quickly by drivers who wake up at the last minute.  Back to my experience.

So I am driving home and stopped at 25th Lane.  A red car was behind me.  It also stopped and caught up with me very quickly.  I knew the dip was coming so I tapped the brake to slow.  Red car whipped out around me and romped on the gas.  When it hit that dip, it became airborne and then came down very hard on the road.  I heard the crash when the bottom of the car hit the pavement.  The car continued forward out of control and swerving from side to side.  By the time it got to Scalese's house it was finally under control.

Now my dear little Bret hit a dip in Pueblo West once and raised his radiator 2 inches.  He was only going 7 mph.  (snicker, snicker!)  This car was probably doing 55 when it hit the dip.  Wonder what it did to that radiator!!  I do not know exactly why I shared this with you, but I must have had a reason.  I wish I had a dash camera and I could have shown it to you.  Might make you want to drive a little more carefully out here.  I do know I just watched this video.  

CLICK HERE

I know they have this law here in Colorado, but no one pays attention to it.  Do we still have traffic enforcement?  I pass more on the right then I do on the left.  In all fairness lots of these drivers are on the phone and not really noticing what I am doing, or what they are doing either for that matter.

I could be wrong , but I think if you are going to be herding a 2000 pound vehicle down a public road you really ought to be aware of your surroundings.  I have niece's that like to text going down the road.  Real important stuff isn't it?  I do not do that because I am old and I can remember when the phone was hooked on the wall and if someone called and I did not answer they just figured I was not home.  Imagine that!  Now I call someone and Lord only knows where they are located.  They could even be in my back seat.

I guess what I am trying to tell/ask/beg people to do is this.  When you crawl in your car, leave you other obligations on the seat or in your pocket and pay attention to driving.  In a perfect world all the cars are going the same place at the same speed, but inevitably someone colors outside the lines.  In a perfect world the only fatality would be the driver with the phone in thier hand, but life does not work that way and I have come too far to be a statistic because someone else heard a phone ring, or heard a text come in, or missed that sign about "DIP".

The road to hell is paved with good intentions!

Wouldn't it have been much simpler to educate the populace?

I am so disappointed in our city fathers that all I can do is shake my head in wonder.  Pueblo is now on the cutting edge because we have bicycle paths painted all over our fair city.  We now have bicycles going both ways on a one way street and cars parked in the middle of the same street.  We are accomodating the people who ride bikes, but guess what?  The bicyclists are afraid to ride in those lanes because they can see a disaster waiting to happen.

When I was young I rode my bike every where.  The first thing I learned to do was think of my bike as a car.  I must ride on the ride side of the road, just as if I were a car.  That way if a car came up behind me and wanted to pass me, the driver would adjust the speed so when the left lane was clear he could speed up and pass me.  I stopped at stop signs and yielded the right of way.  I pedaled fast enough to keep up with the flow of traffic and all was well.  I did not ride on the sidewalk.  So now what?

I was going up South Road on my way to town the other day and came around a curve and was face to face with a very old man on a three wheeler.  He was in my lane headed straight for me.  Unfortuneately there was a car in the left lane so I could not dodge him.  My only choice was to stop right there in the middle of the street.  His solution was to wave his fist at me because I was now impeding his forwar progress.  What was I supposed to do?  He was clearly in the wrong place which apparently made him mad at me.  Wouldn't it be nice and wouldn't it make life easier if motorists were actually allowed to use the roads?

The only way to make a right hand turn off Elizabeth and onto 24th is to run over whoever is in the bike lane.  And 5th street is a one way.  It should me a one way for everyone.  I don't remember many bicycles being hit necessitating the need for the bike lanes.  Someone said it is really to make people slow down.  Wouldn't it have been easier to post speed limit signs at a slower speed?  Not enough police to enforce the speed limit?  Last week three policemen showed up at a friend of mines house because animal control said he had too many cats and he would not let her come in to count them.  Priorities may be a little out of whack here.

Education is the key here.  Give motorists a quick course in bicycle etiquitte and give all the bicycle riders a lesson in riding like driving a car.  Should me simple.  If a car hits a bike and the bike is in the wrong, give the rider a ticket.  If the car is in the wrong, give the driver a ticket.  The way it is now, we just confound the whole mess and we never will get it right.  Rules are rules.  We all have them, we just need to obey them.

Why is a cross "CROSS WALK YIELD TO PEDESTRIANS"?

 Yesterday I had the scare of my young life.  I was driving across town to meet a friend for coffee and a planning session and came upon a cross walk in front of the Library.  You know, the one on Abriendo where there are two lanes of traffic going each way.  I was in the right hand lane and I noticed a pedestrian waiting to cross so out of habit, if no other reason, I stopped.  The car behind me stopped.  The man crossed in front of my car and just as he crossed my line of sight my peripheral vision caught a speeding car on my left.  I sat frozen in horror as the SUV sped past me and the man in the crosswalk froze in mid step and jumped backwards.  Had he finished that step he would have been slaughtered. The tan SUV continued on down the street oblivious to the catastrophe she had nearly created.  But who was really to blame here? 
 First on the scene was the pedestrian.  Had he not wanted to cross the street there never would have been a series of events to lead to tragedy.  Had he just stayed in the Library all would have been well.  And when I stopped he should never have trusted me.  He has no idea who I am.
 Second on the scene was me.  I stopped because it says "CROSS WALK YIELD TO PEDESTRIANS."  I thought that was a law and was to be obeyed.  Silly me!
 Third was the lady in the SUV.  In my humble opinion both lanes of traffic should stop for the cross walk.  If you are going to propel a ton of steel down the street where people are walking you ought to at very least pay attention to your surroundings.  If you are driving down the street and see two cars stopped in your lane, the answer is not to change lanes and speed up  and pass.  The answer is to check your surroundings and proceed with caution.  I am sure when you took your drivers test there was a question on there about pedestrians and the right of way.
 Now let's just put the blame where it really goes, the street department.  They put those signs up.  Why?  Oh they thought someone might look at them and obey what they said. What has happened is that they are giving a false sense of security to a vulnerable human body.  Everyone knows that the pedestrian has the right of way.  Sure they do.  Every where except in Pueblo, Colorado, that is.  Here they are just targets and cross walks are the field of play.  Fortunately they know this.   If they did not know it, they would just walk across the street and feel safe, but they know in this part of the world that they are the target.
 True, ever so often the police put up a reminder that the pedestrian has the right of way in the cross walk, but they do nothing about failure to yield.  They just move the sign some where else.  I was going to the Pantry one day and using that same cross walk.  I had parked by the Library and was trying to get across the street using the cross walk.  I stood there with a policeman and watched the cars zip by without even slowing.  I turned to him and said "Aren't we supposed to have the right of way?"  His reply was a simple, "Yep".  So if our men in blue do not care, why should I?  Why should I stop and let some guy think he can actually cross the street safely?  Seems I was just setting him up on that one.
 I must admit that I slept very little last night and when I did I woke up in a cold sweat seeing that man's face.  So now the question is what do I do about this?  I feel I must do something.  So here is this blog.  Now I will write a letter to the editor that I know no one will read.  Maybe I will go pay a visit to the local gestapo and ask them how we can make our city a safer place to walk.
 There you have it, my thoughts for today.