Thursday, July 1, 2010



We will be back in Indiana in a couple more hours. We got delayed about an hour or so due to witnessing a DUI. The guy was not drunk, but he was on something. He had been about three vehicles ahead of us and at one point almost rear-ended someone who was turning left. About a mile later, the guy was trying to figure out where to turn (or so I thought) and turned left into a parking lot and side swiped a van with a first time driver. (Her mom was in the front passenger seat.) After pulling into the parking lot and hitting the van, he continued on and smashed into the sign and a display that the gas station had up.
Witnessing this, we pulled into the circular driveway across the street and turned to go into the gas station parking lot.
The DUI driver had no plates, no license, no registration, no insurance, and (according to him) no brakes. Dude, if you are going to drive illegally, at the very least drive a vehicle that has working brakes.
Anyway, the guy wanted to leave and some of the gentlemen that were there (including my husband) passively kept him from leaving by surrounding his vehicle and talking with him. If we did not have the children in the van, we would have pulled right up behind him with the van to block him in.
Anyway, we hung out until state patrol showed up and took a report. I looked over at my van and noticed my expired plates (expired a couple of weeks ago) and made the mention to the mom of the teen driver that I might get a ticket out of this. She was urging me to leave and I said “No. I am not leaving. What this guy did was wrong. If I happen to get a ticket for expired plates, it is my fault and my own doing. This is a morality issue. Standing up for what is right.”
If I had left, what would that say about me? What would that teach my children? Don’t stand against a big wrong because your little wrong might be noticed and you’ll get called on it? Sorry, but we don’t work like that. Wrong is wrong right is right and standing for right and against wrong is how we live no matter how inconvenient it might be.
Anyway, we made our witness statements and were told we could go.
The trip itself except for that one incident has been pretty uneventful so far. There have been some idiot drivers and St. Louis was nightmarish, but otherwise it has been fine. I am missing internet service. I’ve been playing Mahjong a few times and have taken my turn at driving (I was the driver when that guy hit that van) and found a Chinese buffet that we will never go to again where we had supper. We’ll be at SIL’s in a couple of hours. I am tired and the children are restless.