Early last May, Anita Zaffke was riding home on her Honda Shadow from her son’s house. They had  been making plans for the upcoming Mother’s Day weekend. As she approached a traffic light, it turned yellow.  She came to a stop and waited for the light to change again.

While she was waiting, another woman driving a car struck her from behind, throwing Anita and the bike several hundred feet forward.  Folks who were on the scene called 911 and tried to help Anita.  Meanwhile, the police arrived and started talking to the car’s driver. She kept saying she didn’t see the motorcycle until she’d already hit it.  She finally told the police that she didn’t see the stopped bike because she was painting her nails.

Because so many people multi-task while driving or riding, her son formed the Black Nail Brigade to call attention to this problem. It’s not always alcohol or drugs that cause impaired judgment – it can be talking on a phone, kids screaming in the backseat,  or simply changing the radio station or CD.

A friend of mine is in the hospital now, because someone was driving impaired- the person driving the other car was reported to be on drugs. She crossed the line and hit him almost straight head-on.  He lost his left foot in the accident, and had lots of other injuries, including fractures in his backbone. Thankfully no spinal cord injury happened, and the hospital is taking good care of him.

But when are folks going to learn that an 800 pound bike, or a 2,000 pound car is not something to mess around with? When you get behind the wheel, you’ve got to keep your mind on what you’re doing. I’m guilty myself of talking on the cell phone while driving- my excuse is I can answer my phone one-handed and keep my eyes on the road.  But that’s not good enough.

We’ve got good laws in place to take care of this- we just need to let our law enforcement officers know that we want them to stop people who are not paying attention. And we’ve got to quit saying, “well, why are they picking on me? they should be out stopping the real criminals.” Because  it could just as easily been someone who was distracted by a cell phone, or a backseat conversation, or  something on the floor (or gum on a shoe)  who hit my friend. It could have been any one of us.

All it takes is a few seconds…

I’ve seen some notes and posts on various social networking sites lately that have really stayed on my mind, and I’d like to address them here.  I’m pretty sure this will start a firestorm of comments disagreeing with me; and if it does, so be it. I’m a big girl and I can handle it.

The statements that have caught my attention basically say that anyone who is truly pro-life wouldn’t eat meat/kill animals, and wouldn’t agree with the death penalty or war.

First, it’s hard for me to hold the life of an animal in the same importance as a person – I have pets now,  and I’ve had them most of my life. I love my pets and take good care of them. Woe be to the person who messes with them. But if I had to make a choice between my children or grandchildren (or any person, for that matter), and one of those pets, there would be no contest.  I’ve already had to make that choice once, and I wouldn’t hesitate to make it again, in exactly the same manner.

I don’t have a problem with folks who don’t eat meat- that’s your choice, and you’re welcome to it. I do eat meat, however, and enjoy it. If given the chance, I’d hunt.  I’d raise chickens, pigs, cows and rabbits for eating.  I would take good care of those animals, and make sure they had plenty of room, exercise, food, water and sunshine, and protection from the weather. When it came time to harvest them, I would make things as painless and stress-free as possible, and I would be able to eat them with a clear conscience. God has commanded His followers to be good stewards of the earth, and I want to do my part.

I believe that human life begins at conception- I don’t see any other way of looking at it. When a baby is conceived, it has it’s own DNA, it’s own organs- at just a few weeks, you can even see the baby’s heartbeat. I’ve heard folks say that up until a certain point, it can’t live outside the mother, so it’s not really life. I’ve got news for you- if you left a preschool child in a house by itself for a week, it probably couldn’t survive either, so that argument is mud.

The same goes for older people, or people with disabilities – how dare anyone say that because a person isn’t ‘normal’ they don’t have any quality of life. I know plenty of people who have life challenges – just within my own circle of friends, I know people who have Down’s Syndrome, or who are autistic, or are mentally retarded or physically challenged in some way.  I would think most everybody has some kind of challenge to meet, whether it’s mental, physical or otherwise.

Just look at my dad-  Daddy had a stroke almost 17 years ago.  For a while, the doctors tried to tell Mama that he would only be a vegetable, if he recovered at all.  But he did;  no, Daddy can’t do a lot of things he used to do, but he can still do a lot. He recently set up spreadsheets for the mileage costs on his car- for fun… he knows what each tank of gas has cost, what the MPG is for each tank, and the cost per mile. He’s compiled lists of each vehicle he’s ever owned; he can tell you what he paid for it and just about anything else about it. I’m not saying that every stroke victim is as fortunate as Daddy, but they still can have  quality of life.

So I don’t agree with euthanasia either- I believe God should be charge of deciding when we die, and I plan on letting Him take me when He’s ready. Until then, I’m going to live as fully as I can.

Now, to the death penalty:  comparing abortion to the death penalty is like comparing the cruel torture and death of a kitten to destroying a man-eating tiger who is about to kill your family.  An innocent unborn child has done nothing to anyone to warrant being destroyed- nothing except existing. On the other hand, someone who is on death row doesn’t get there by accident.  It usually takes a pretty bad crime to get the death penalty.

As far as war- I can’t imagine anyone who wants to be in war. I don’t want to fight with anyone. But I’ve had times in my own life that I had to stand up for myself against bullies. Bullies don’t respond to ‘nice’ – I’ve never known a bully who quit picking on someone because that person was nicer to them.  And I’ve never known a bully who quit taking things from you because you gave them a little extra.  That just tells the bully they can keep on doing what they’re doing, at a greater profit. At some point, you’ve got to ‘put up your dukes’ and just knock the snot out of them, even if it means getting the snot knocked out of you too. One way or another, you’ve got to show them that you’re not going to let them run over you, and then, they’ve got to decide whether messing with you is worth the trouble. I’m not saying it’s always got to come to physical blows- but one way or the other, you’ve got to stand up for yourself.

As a final note I’d like to say this- I’m not going to be ugly to someone who’s gone through an abortion.  It’s got to be one of the toughest decisions to make, and I’m sure no one makes it lightly.   I’ve had family and friends who’ve been through it, and it hasn’t changed the way I feel about them, or the way I treat them. They don’t know that I know about it, and I plan on keeping it that way.  I’m never going to stop loving and caring  for them.

But that doesn’t mean I have to be happy about how many children we’re losing every year to this atrocity.

Like most afternoons, I rode up to meet Randy yesterday afternoon at Highland Home.  It was a nice afternoon for a ride; breezy and not too hot. Traffic was light and the road was mine.

Headed back home, we came by a small country store in a curve- we always have to watch the vehicles  here. I guess maybe there’s a blind spot, or folks aren’t expecting bikes to come around. Anyway, a Jeep pulled out in front of us, just as we’re getting to the store. Instead of making some acknowledgment that they’d pulled out in front of us, and trying  to make sure we were safe, they just kept on coming out into our lane at their own little pace.

I normally have a surge of fear kick in- will we be able to stop or swerve around them, or will we end up sitting in their backseats?  I geared down, then started blowing my horn at them; I’m not sure how effective that was, since my horn sounds like the Road Runner on the cartoons – beep-beep, beep-beep.  It apparently meant nothing to the driver of the Jeep because they just kept trucking along their merry way.

As I said, normally a healthy fear kicks in to make sure I’m taking care of business, but this time righteous anger rose up, and I could feel the dragon wings on my shoulder blades trying to break through my t-shirt and denim vest as I leaned forward.  My horns were trying their best to push my helmet off.  I geared back up and instead of settling in beside Randy, I kept speeding up. I could almost feel myself and my bike lifting into the air as I prepared to breathe fire on the Jeep and it’s driver.

After a few minutes, though, I remembered who I was, and slowed down enough to fall in beside Randy. Of course, the rest of the ride home was spent in repentant prayer- after all, it’s not up to me to spew flaming daggers at drivers who won’t pay attention to what’s going on around them…

Note to self: make sure my newly acquired dragon is seated correctly on rear seat before the next ride.

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