Road Warriors

Meal time again. I snagged a polish at Costco, while grabbing sundries, same Costco I'd missed by a long shot on July 4. So I'll just dip in for coffee, not frequent the food bars (speaking of PLU cafeteria).

Hey, a trippy thing happened this morning: a government fleet vehicle followed me for many blocks, right to my disabled parking space (chauffeuring mom -- though not at the time (was getting supermarket sushi for breakfast)), all just to give me a lecture about young people killed (not by me), the implication being by people "like me" (black white or whatever).

Yes, I'd only slowed at the stop sign, but only to keep this waiting government truck behind me, giving him room (he looked slow). We're talking 8:30 AM on a Saturday morning in a campus neighborhood that's rented out in the summer. The place was desolate, absent of people, flat parking lots everywhere, our vehicles the only two in the picture. Chirp chirp (cricket noise).

Not an excuse to break rules (full stop better), but not a case of reckless endangerment either (I later saw a city bus make the same slow rolling-turn maneuver). Isn't chasing a private civilian when you're not the police a bit of a transgression also? That was unbudgeted gas mileage. What if I'd freaked and had heart palpitations?

This quiet empty morning scene was not the setting in which those others had been killed, I would venture.

"[ Homicide ] is the 2nd leading cause of death among 10-24 year olds", I think was the question, but I forget the scope or the source. I helped a health teacher do some grading, using a simple answer key.

I do grading anyway so it's not like I did it unprofessionally. I should join the graders' union. That might mean, to some, that I drive a grader (subclass of tractor) and work on public roads.

Other questions were about the difference between "aggravated" and "simple" assault.

To what extent do lawyers get to tell us, the private users of this heritage, what these words "really" mean. Every discipline has its "push campaigns". Like doctors without borders and so on. We learn to share the road.