FAYETTEVILLE — Couple of days ago, someone asked me if I thought it was going to stop raining.
“I hope not,” I responded, as a shocked look crept onto the questioner’s face. “Then we’ll be begging for it to rain.”
Sure the heavy rain, and the light rain, and the levels of rain between those extremes cause us to change our schedules and sometimes work harder. Heck, the heavy rain washed away the backfill on 1,400 feet of water line I buried two weeks ago. (By the way, anyone want to help me shovel dirt and gravel back into the trench? It’s good exercise, outdoors. I’ll provide the shovel.)
The question is sort of like the TV weather forecasters: They are never happy with the weather. Maybe it’s human nature to not be happy with the weather.
Problem is, we can’t control it. So, be happy with the conditions. I’m not saying, for example, that in the depths of a drought we should not wish for rain, pray for rain, do rain dances; rather, I’m saying accept the current, nonextreme weather for what it is - a gift.
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A few weeks ago, Dodie Evans, managing editor of the Gravette News Herald, wrote about a driving incident he had on a gray, rainy day. At an intersection, he had to stop at the two-way stop sign. Checking left, he turned right. Right into the path of an oncoming car - a gray car that blendedperfectly with the road and sky. A car without headlights on.
Luckily, no collision happened.
Last week, it happened to me, too.
I checked for oncoming traffic, then pulled out. Movement in the mirror caught my attention: A car was barreling down - a car I’d not seen a second ago. A car without headlights on. A car that blended in with the gray landscape.
Luckily, no collision happened.
Too often, as drivers, we glance for oncoming traffic.
But do we really look? Look hard? I want to think that I gave the lane a good look, but apparently I did not. How could I have missed a car that was there the whole time?
The answer, of course, is “Pretty easy.”
Years ago (OK, decades ago, three decades ago, give or take a year), a group of Boy Scouts hiking through what is now the Madison County Wildlife Management Area walked within touching distance of a man who was bow-hunting deer.
Out of maybe a dozen strong, only two people in the group saw the man, who was dressed in the low-tech military camo of the era, and he was not hiding behind a thing. Yet, he could have reached out andtouched any one of the group.
Instead, he crouched stockstill. We all marched past, focused on the trail, on making camp, on anything but seeing things around us.
I spotted a colored nock on an arrow; Eddie Thomas saw an eye blink. Eddie said he made eye contact; I made eye contact. Neither said a word about it. I expected him to suddenly spring out and shout. Oh, the joy of doing that would have been immense. Imagine the fright of a 13-year-old boy when part of a tree suddenly came to life.
The point is that as drivers, we’ve got to be aware that our vehicles - while big and shiny and rolling along at 25 or 45 or 65 mph - might be camouflaged by our surroundings. It might be hard to miss my big, red pickup truck on a gray day.
But change the color, only the color, and suddenly it disappears into the background even if it is moving along a city street.
The routine is what’s dangerous. When we begin to make something as dangerous as driving absolutely routine, we begin to skate on thin ice. I know that, way too often, I allow the routine to control my actions - in driving and in many other areas of my life.
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Kent Marts is editor/general manager of The Benton County Daily Record. His column appears on Wednesdays. He can be reached at kentm@nwanews.
com.
Opinion, Pages 6 on 10/14/2009