Once again I am writing to all of you from our den and I am looking out of the window at our fruit trees which are blossoming once again with the hope of them delivering a nice bounty of apples this fall. I just filled my mug with Door County Orange Creme Coffee and now it is time to write.
James 4:17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
For some time now my wife Rene and I have been watching a potential accident just waiting to happen. In front of our home we have an intersection of two streets. Coming from the West the road has a hill that is somewhat of a steep grade. The grade is an attraction for the children in the neighborhood. They love to ride their bicycles down the street and the grade accelerates them to a speed they cannot achieve by just pedaling. At the end of their thrill ride is a stop sign at the intersection. The cars traveling North and South do not need to stop. There have been some near collisions not only with the bicyclists and cars but also car on car. The stop sign is ignored most of the time. Since living here only one crash actually happened, but it ended up causing a young boy some head injury and a few broken bones as well as a couple nights in the hospital, The driver of the car who collided with the bicyclist was also traveling way too fast in a residential area and was fined and considered at fault. I know it went to court and never did hear how it turned out. I could easily say that both parties were emotionally scarred for a lifetime.
So since we started living here in 1994 most people would say that the accident percentage is very low, and it is. Our neighborhood has a Face Book Page and lately I posted for safety what we have been seeing from our point of view. Kids more than ever are running the stop sign, not looking for cars and some drivers in the neighborhood are definitely trying to qualify as NASCAR drivers. The potential for an accident has raised quite a bit. Two near misses recently with one little girl were so close that I didn't breathe for a couple of seconds.
One day recently as she came through the intersection out of control and hit a stone in the road her bicycle wobbling toward me and two neighbors who I was talking to near the edge of the road. I finally said to our little Speeder. " Hey you just went through a stop sign, and almost hurt yourself . You need to stop at the sign. Now, my voice wasn't raised nor was anything mean said to this little lady.
Who knows what she said when she went home. Now her parents have her riding her bike on the sidewalk which avoids a collision with cars and there isn't a stop sign as she turns South. At night now while walking, the mother who always used to say hi walks past, nose in the air and usually gives me the death look. I am probably known as the old crabby guy who yells. I could have ignored our little thrill seeker and not said anything. But the chance of running out to the street again with a blanket and first aid was becoming closer to the real thing every day. If I could do it all over again, I would have had my neighbor go with me and follow the little one home. Then we could have discussed the incident and all the near misses in person. That is all hindsight.
So the message of the day is this. Sometimes doing the right thing is painful, but it still needs to be done. Where I messed up was not having a better plan. The little rascal was obviously going to continue doing this despite drivers swerving to miss her. Or until she was hurt. I did pray for her safety and thought the social media warning would have reached her parents. It didn't, and in the heat of a near miss again and being in a place where she had to hear me, I spoke. I should have prayed and asked God for a plan of action ahead of time. I regret not doing that. I might have lost a hello or two, but I believe we also averted a tragedy. I did something and it was right, but at the same time painful. I will side always side on the right thing. Doing right can be costly.
More tomorrow and this same subject.
Marty.
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