Ana and I are safe

We both left campus right about the time that the I-35 bridge collapse happened into the river. On another day, we would have been on it, but she was on her bike and I almost never take the freeway home during rush hour, so although we were crossing the river about that time, neither of us was on the span of the bridge that fell into the river. Instead, we took the 10th Ave bridge that crosses the river just a little way to the east. I came home and turned on the TV to check on something else, and saw the news unfolding. I immediately called my mother to let her know I was OK. Then my brother called me from Maryland because he'd realized that the freeway is the one that goes by the University.

Right now, the news is trickling in, rescue workers are on the scene. Boats and divers are in the water trying to find the vehicles that went into the water--maybe up to 50.

A few eyewitnesses are telling what they saw. A University colleague heard the noise and saw the whole thing from his fifth floor office on the West Bank of the U of MN campus. It looks as if there was some structural damage, some stress fractures in the steel structure.

A storm is moving in--I can hear the thunder. We badly need the rain because of the drought, but it is going to make rescue efforts more complicated.

A little drama on my way home

Yesterday morning, I was driving home when I saw a pickup truck ahead of me that looked as if it were attempting to pull into a parking space. Its nose was near the curb, but the back was blocking the lane. I didn't see any turn signal flashing, but that wasn't unusual. It wasn't moving, either, which was. Other cars were passing it, and I prepared to do so as well, but something wasn't right. As I got closer, I noticed that the driver was slumped against the window, and just as I was about to pass, he toppled over onto the passenger seat. I flashed on the time a friend and I had seen a man through the window of a restaurant, sitting at a table, but in such a way that we immediately realized he was dead, and his family had not yet realized it. I was afraid the driver might have had a heart attack or a stroke, so I pulled over as soon as I could, put on my flashers, and ran back to see. His door was unlocked and I opened it to see him sprawled onto the passenger side. I couldn't tell if he was alive, so I tapped him on the leg and called out to him. He moved, and then sat up, looking confused. I repeated, are you all right? because he didn't seem to understand that something was wrong. Then I realized that he was just plain stinking drunk, and I mean stinking. I told him he needed to give me the keys and get out of the truck because he couldn't drive. He wasn't belligerent, but he wasn't having any of it, either. We went back and forth a few times, and I told him I was going to call the police, even as I remembered that my cell phone was at home. He mumbled something, then started the car and drove away--I couldn't stop him. I jumped back in my car and got home as soon as I could, just a few minutes away, and called it in to 911. I was sick that I hadn't been able to keep him from driving away--he was blind drunk, but I didn't want to try to lean into the cab across his body to grab the keys from him because I would have been placing myself in danger, and I'm not prepared to fight with anyone, let alone someone twice my size. I was able to see his license as he drove away, and was able to tell the dispatcher which way he was going. She said, Uh oh, sounds like other folks are calling him in, too.

So I have no idea what happened, if he was pulled over, if he caused an accident, ran over a pedestrian. I have to hope that because other calls were coming in, that the police were able to get him off the road. I haven't seen any stories in the paper, so I'm hoping they hauled his drunk ass off to jail and that he will have his license yanked or worse. It wasn't even noon and he was blind drunk.

Drunk driving is a huge issue here in Minnesota, as it is everywhere, even though the state has a lower rate of alcohol-realted fatalities that others. Penalities have been toughened recently (over great protest).

I ended a relationship with a man because of his drinking, and this brought back all the anger, sorrow and frustration that being involved with an alcoholic entails. He was arrested for DUI, but never took responsibility for it. I learned a lot in that relationship, but it also broke my heart.

Every story

I'm putting together some things on for a class on narrative, and I was so happy to find this old Sesame Street Classic. I didn't watch Sesame Street growing up; I watched it with my daughter. We taped a lot of episodes and watched them over and over. A couple of my favorite bits were animated by super talented Sally Cruikshank. She has put some of her videos up on YouTube. I think this one--"Every story has a beginning, middle and an end" is a great version of a lot of narrative theory--and you can dance to it! It sounds a lot like what the Talking Heads were doing at the time, which is probably one of the reasons I like it.