A funny thing happened

A funny thing happened on the way to church the other night,

Ok, ok, it wasn't funny. And it didn't happen on the way to church, it actually happened on the way home. We had just crossed into Dunstable and were following a truck, moving along at a pretty good pace, when we suddenly slowed down. There was a car in the road ahead of us that we caught up to, moving about 15 MPH.

I try not to be impatient, and we weren't too upset that we were driving so slowly. I looked back and at one point we had 15 cars behind us. On that windy twisty narrow road, it's tough to count 15 cars behind you, which tells a lot about the snail pace we were moving. After a few minutes of this, Deniese noticed that the car up front was sorta swerving around. Sure enough, sometimes he put two wheels on the other side of the center line and had to jerk back to avoid hitting oncoming traffic. We kinda wondered if he was drunk, and where he was going. Not trusting him, we eased back further in line and I noticed the truck in front of us did the same. As we drove right by the police station in Dunstable, we honked our horn hoping someone would come out but no one took notice, other than some of the other drivers behind us who also honked. Rounding the curve there, which is a little tight, the slow car went all the way over into the left lane and just missed going off the other side of the road! Well, that was more than enough for me. Seeing the occupied police car at Dunkin' Doughnuts, we pulled in and I ran over to explain the situation. Before I even had it all out the officer had his engine fired, lights on, and creeping forward. Off he went, and down the road a ways we came upon the car and the policeman. Dum da dum dum.

As we drove by, Dave said with a little sarcasm in his voice "This could be a bulletin, dad." (Which it became! Apparently Dave isn't real excited that so many things that happen to us become bulletins. Why, I bet Dave thought he was pretty funny, and getting back at his old dad. Of course, I would never be so ornery as to mention the name Dave here like this: Dave Dave Dave) So mom challenged Dave to tell us what the point would be. What can we learn from this experience?

I'm sure many of us have had similar bad driver encounters, and after reading the above could come up with a wonderful "moral to the story." Dave pointed out that it shows that we could die any time, that death could be waiting for us around the curve. For the victim who ran into this clown head on, that would surely be true, and it's a good point. You might drive so very, very cautious yet still find some doofus to run you over. Old age is not a guarantee, it sill amazes me that I have survived as long as I have.

I had some other thoughts, though. Of the 15 cars that were behind us, one of them could have been a patrol car. However, they wouldn't have been able to see what was going on. I was right there, thus it was up to me to do something about it. The guy needed stopped. Maybe you think I should have just minded my own business. Other than driving slow, he wasn't hurting anyone, right? Well I disagree. He was not only a danger to himself, but to whoever he ended up piling into on the road. I was doing him a huge favor by telling the police about it. There may be people alive today who will never know how that night could have ended for them, had I not acted. If nothing else, there may be a tree today that I saved from having a car wrapped around it. And when we have sin in our lives, we should help one another get rid of it. The elders can't see it all. The last time I remember someone asking "Am I my brother's keeper?" the answer was YES.

Randy