I came close to creating another obituary for the Optic as I drove downtown on Hot Springs Boulevard Thursday night.<\/p>\n
I proofread all the obits after La Gente Editor Mercy L\u00c3\u00b3pez places them on the page. Thus, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s safe to say we have a long-time vested interest in what appears on the Optic\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s page three.<\/p>\n
On Hot Springs, as one approaches the Behavioral Health Institute, the speed limit drops from 45 to 35. I slowed down and soon noticed a woman close to the middle of the street.<\/p>\n
She crossed the street as if she owned it. Worse, she didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seem to have even noticed whether cars were whizzing by in both directions.<\/p>\n
Was she inebriated? Confused? Injured? She was none of these things, merely a woman trying to get across, and for whom crosswalks are a mere suggestion. Was the pedestrian wearing bright-colored clothes that a motorist on that dark night would notice? Was she even aware that she was in the wrong, avoiding the crosswalk lines and walking diagonally across the busy street?<\/p>\n
When much younger, even before learning to drive, I became aware of a stupid game called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153chicken.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Does that bring back memories?<\/p>\n
This form of gamesmanship simply allowed macho males to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153prove\u00e2\u20ac\u009d how much of an \u00e2\u20ac\u0153hombre\u00e2\u20ac\u009d they were. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d wait until a car came by and deliberately take the slowest stroll into the path of the car.<\/p>\n
The result clearly was to show how brave they were. Most of them gambled that rather than try to prove a point, motorists instead would yield for these pedestrians.<\/p>\n
After the close encounter of the worst kind with the woman who cavalierly strolled across the street, I pulled over, collected my senses, thanked God that the life of a pedestrian scofflaw had been spared, and then drove off without asking the woman things I was tempted to ask. Had I traded words with her, my question would have been, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Do you have a death wish?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Her \u00e2\u20ac\u0153game\u00e2\u20ac\u009d still puzzles me. Was she hoping to be able to tell Saint Peter at the gate all about this man in an old Mercury who almost ran over her?<\/p>\n
We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll let that remain her secret.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d thought all week about composing a Thanksgiving-themed column. And to do that, we need a list of things we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re thankful for.<\/p>\n
Well, my gratitude is that I was able to avoid creating a highway fatality by swerving my car. For that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m extremely grateful.<\/p>\n
Even though the lady with whom I had a close encounter wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t much help, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m still grateful.
\nHappy Thanksgiving!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I came close to creating another obituary for the Optic as I drove downtown on Hot Springs Boulevard Thursday night. I proofread all the obits after La Gente Editor Mercy L\u00c3\u00b3pez places them on the page. Thus, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s safe to say we have a long-time vested interest in what appears on the Optic\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s page three. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1572"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1572"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1573,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1572\/revisions\/1573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}