Thursday, January 03, 2008

The News Has Me Down, and, Why Didn't She Just Go To Boston??

The news has me despondent the past few days. My little corner of the world has been reeling from a Sunday night tragedy in which a construction worker with a blood alcohol level over three times the legal driving limit for our state, got into his truck, entered the interstate going in the wrong direction, and managed to get four miles before he killed a mother and four children who were traveling home to Maryland after visiting family in Michigan. The father and two children survived.

The news keeps playing footage of the accident site - it looks like a bomb went off inside the family's minivan.

Oh, the drunk driver? Yeah, he broke his jaw. THAT'S IT. He killed 5 people and HE BROKE HIS JAW. I would like to take a tire iron to his head. I would like to take a tire iron to the heads of the people who let him leave the bar he was at.

I realize that this has been done to death, but, good grief. What does it take to make people realize that car+alcohol=dead people.

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The news out of Kenya has me biting my nails. My 17-year-old cousin, K~, attends boarding school near Nairobi, where there is rioting and pillaging and people being burned alive, and it is basically a horrible situation in what was, heretofore, one African nation where things seemed to be okay.

This morning, I did hear from my cousin M~ (K~'s older sister who is here in the US going to college) that K~ is still in Uganda with my aunt and uncle and won't be returning to school for several more days at least...it still has me nervous.

_________

I was at the doctor's office this morning, sitting in my paper gown, waiting for the doctor, when the radio began to play a song I hadn't heard in years, but that never fails to reduce me to gushing tears.

It was Dave Loggins' Please Come To Boston from 1974.

Good grief. IS THERE A SADDER SONG EVER??

The line that kills me every time is "Please come to L.A. to live forever" - and she just says "no, you come home to me." WHY?????? WHY?? Seriously - the man loves her - like, in a passionate, epic way. And she won't leave Tennessee?

Don't you think if she had JUST GONE TO BOSTON she probably could have used her wicked feminine wiles to LURE him back to Tennessee eventually? Was she wholly unable to see the bigger picture? Did she not really love him?

Anyway, EVERY TIME I hear the song, I just tear up and think, "How could she turn him down?? Why didn't she just go to Boston?? WHY??"

Yeah, it's possible that I get too emotionally involved in such things.

Fortunately the next song on the radio was something benign from Hall&Oates, I think, so, I was able to stop crying before the doctor came in. Cause I'm sure there's nothing a doctor likes more than to find his patient, waiting for her annual visit, crying into her paper gown over a 34 year old love song.

LM

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5 Comments:

Blogger LaLa said...

So sad about the family...disgusting really!

Ok...look, I live in TN and I can see why she won't leave LOL Boston ~ too freaking cold and expensive, LA~ way to crowded and Denver~hmmm, that one I might go for!

Thursday, January 03, 2008 3:36:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well, maybe, just maybe, the girl knows that the boy is unstable as all-get-out, since he's previously asked her to move Boston, Denver, LA, and he's from TN (we may assume).

I mean, really. Where will it all end?

And then, there's the fact that he got her pregnant and left her in TN to raise the children all alone, with no income and she's having to pay off his gambling debt and the penalities from the times he never filed the taxes and ....

oh wait. This isn't about me. It's just a song. lol

Thanks for the laughs, Gretchen. Keep it coming and I'll keep reading...

Teri
(from Iowa)

Thursday, January 03, 2008 4:52:00 PM  
Blogger niobe said...

As someone who lives in (well, near) Boston, I'm wondering WTF is her problem? Every Bostonian knows that our fair city is the hub round which the universe revolves.

And the drunk driver story is just too horrible.

Friday, January 04, 2008 9:31:00 AM  
Blogger Danielle said...

Did I tell you that one of my students is that drunk drivers brother? It was actually my students truck. Both from Adrian. Horrible.

Friday, January 04, 2008 4:43:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I feel the same way about the song "Same Old Lang Syne"....I can't get over how pitiful it sounds to be drinking a six pack in the back of a car, telling someone you basically just married for money and then just walking away-back to your same old sad life-where's the happy ending???? There is ALWAYS a happy ending!!

Oh yea, I totally don't think she should have followed him either from your song. He moves too much, he would have gotten tired of her just like he did of all those cities.....but I do think the house overlooking the ocean may have been worth at least a visit or two:)

Tracy (from TN:)

Tuesday, January 08, 2008 12:47:00 AM  

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