Guilty!

The Captain has a harrowing story of an auto accident, and pictures to prove it. It reminds me of an accident that I was in.

For thirteen years I owned a store in Durango, Colorado called The Greenery. We were a florist, but also sold cards, gifts, and books in 12,000 feet of space. Every Spring I would go every week or two to greenhouses around Colorado to pick up bedding plants. The rest of the year I would travel about once a month to get house plants.

On one such trip there was snow covering the gound all the way to my destination. The road was straight and narrow, with no shoulder. Like a dummy, I had no sunglasses, and began to get sleepy. I kept looking for a place to pull over, but finally fell asleep at the wheel. The van crossed the road, went down into a ditch, through a fence, turned over and over, flattening like a pancake. However, before that, I was thrown out of the front windshield, because I was not wearing a seat belt, and landed flat on my back in the wet snow.

The state trooper gave me a ticket for negligent driving. Negligent? How could I have been negligent, when I was looking for a place to turn off the road, but there was no shoulder? I decided to hop on a bus and go to court and protest the ticket. The judge told me that I was as guilty as anyone who had ever come before his majesty! I paid the fine, which was high enough to pay the rancher for the torn fence, and then I gloomily returned home.

I wish I had a photo to show you of that flattened van!