That One Time Inauguration Day Really Hit Me Hard

I often say that, good or bad, my life has rarely been directly affected by the actions of a President. So to me Inauguration Day has never been an important part of my calendar. It’s just another day. I go to work, I do my job, I come home to spend time with my wife and children. That’s never changed with any president. Except once…

January 20, 2009 was a historic day in American history because the first black leader was sworn into office as the President of the United States. This happened the day after MLK Day. I’d taken an additional day off to do build my fence. Hurricane Ike hit Houston September 13, and I still didn’t have a fence around my yard. Over the winter break I dug all the holes (thank you, auger) and put up the beams and crossbeams. Now I needed to add the planks. This was the last part, and I was excited. Once the planks and gate were up, my dogs could walk about freely in the backyard for the first time in almost four months.

I drove my beloved 4Runner to the Home Depot. It’s not far from me. Maybe a mile, tops. I was almost there when a kid blew threw a STOP sign and T-boned the 4Runner. Okay, that’s oversimplifying the physics involved. It’s more like, the car accelerated to beat me to his stop sign. The kid lost control of his car, and it swiped into the ditch. To escape the ditch, he gunned the accelerator on the already speeding car and rammed me. So even though he was coming from my right, the car struck me on the left. At least, that’s what I was told. I don’t remember those 2 or 3 seconds and I don’t remember the sporty little white beater car zooming across the street. The dent on the driver-side door says that’s where he struck me. Because of the height difference between his little car and mine with a modest lift kit, I think he’s lucky he didn’t kill himself.

The car struck mine with so much force that he spun the 4Runner catawampus (love that word) and pushed it part-way into the ditch. It was a big impact!

I was phased, and my glasses were thrown somewhere else in the car. When the police arrived, they helped me find my glasses. By then, the kid’s father had driven up. The kid finally came to a stop about fifty or so yards away. The father was consoling his son. I still wonder if they’d had a fight at the Target/Home Depot and the kid was driving mad. But I’ll never know.

Another man who’d happened to be driving the other direction opposite me was there. I remember him yelling at the kid that the kid couldn’t be patient enough and this was what happened when you weren’t patient. “I hope they arrest you and lock you up!”

Very quickly, a tow truck appeared out of nowhere, got the 4Runner, cleaned up all the broken debris splashed along the road, and then disappeared. I was in a blur, but this all seemed to happen very quickly. I feel like from the point where I left the house to when the police officer dropped me back home was less than ten minutes. In ten minutes my life went from “let’s go fix the fence” to “what do we do now?” We’re doing hurricane home repairs and now we have to buy a new car, too? Life was piling up, for sure. But I survived the wreck and we rebuilt our home, so that means all of this is an adventure. I began the short process of reporting the accident to my insurance company. While I reported, on the television Supreme Court Justice John Roberts was administering the oath to Obama.

So while the events aren’t causal, I still equate Obama’s inauguration as that time my car got totaled. The juxtaposition between a peaceful transition of power and a violent transition of cars will always remind me of that day. Hopefully nothing like that happens again, and I can go back to Presidents not impacting my day-to-day. I hope the same can be said for you.

Beautiful family, beautiful car

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