Thursday, August 30, 2007

One of Those Days

Blogging pal, Debbie, over at http://www.righttruth.wordpress.com/, has nominated me for the Nice Award. She is a sweet gal and I will take any good strokes I can get today.

What a day. I was picking up the boy at school and maneuvered through the parking lot to get back to the side street. Onto the side street, stopped, in line, waiting for the stop light to change to green to get onto the main street. Some young chickadee was driving far too fast and not paying attention, evidently, and rammed into my rear bumper. She was in her daddy's SUV and I suppose it could have been worse. It did unnerve me, I must admit, as these accidents out of the blue can do to a person. Bleck.

Let me just say that the high school parking lot, alive with new drivers, scares the water out of me.

I read an interesting article written by Jodi Kantor for The New York Times the other day. Do you realize how many potential presidential candidates this time around have very young children at home? It's quite extraordinary. Proves we baby boomers refuse to grow old gracefully, I guess.

You know John Edwards has Emma Claire (I adore her Southern name, by the way) age 9 and Jack age 7. Well four others have young ones, too. Chris Dodd has Grace age 5 who suffers from some life-threatening allergies and Christina age 2. Barack Obama has the two young girls but it appears he is disrupting their lives the least. He and Michelle have made the decision to not have them on the campaign trail, as opposed, to say, the Edwards.

Sam Brownback has twin nine year olds, Mark and Jenna. And Fred Thompson, as soon to declare candidate, has two really young ones, the youngest being Samuel who is only 9 months old.

Interesting.

And then Peggy Noonan's column "To Old Times" that appeared in the Wall Street Journal last week. She reminisced about a trip to Normandy in 1991. It was summer and she went hot air ballooning. The balloon had to land unexpectedly in a farmer's field. He was an old man and was so excited to host some Americans. He ran into his house and came back out, carrying a bottle of Calvados, to make a toast. His toast? "To old times." He had not seen any Americans since the Normandy Invasion. Wild. He was honored to thank the next generation of those who fought their way through France, to give France back to the French, as Noonan said.

She went on to write her thoughts of the children of Iraq. They will one day tell stories to the next generation of the American soldiers. Our soldiers are doing wonderful acts of kindness in Iraq, as well as yeoman's work, such as building hospitals, schools and distributing school supplies.

"It is not possible that the good people of Iraq are not noticing, and that in some way down the road the sum of these acts will not come to have some special meaning, some special weight of its own. The actor Gary Sinise helps run Operation Iraqi Children, which delivers school supplies with the help of U.S. forces. When he visits Baghdad grade schools, the kids yell, "Lieutenant Dan!" -- his role in "Forrest Gump," the story of another good man."

Makes a person proud.

9 comments:

Paul is a Hermit said...

You don't mention being injured, I hope that means you are not. Or by tomorrow will know for sure that you are not.
I suppose you were in a car while in the rear view mirror Daddy's SUV gave you a Vinny Barbarino, "What?"

You're right, Karen, about our troops but a rushed withdrawal from Iraq, leaving atrocities and slaughter in it's wake, by our civilian leaders may tell different stories.
Or you think it would. I'm amazed to this day to hear that Americans are well-liked in Vietnam. Maybe you're right, the individual acts may carry the more and lasting weight. Or is it only the perception of generation unfamiliar with that time?

AmPowerBlog said...

Nice post! I'm glad you're okay!

Burkean Reflections

Incognito said...

Yes indeed... sorry about the fender bender...
and congrats on the award.. :-)

The WordSmith from Nantucket said...

I do hope that it's those day-to-day individual acts of kindness that make a difference, in the long run. School supplies, a soccer ball, or just passing out candy may seem insignificant and non-news worthy than exploding vehicles and the latest IED, but what will the Iraqi children remember of U.S. soldiers? Do they know and will they understand through the years, that we were there defending them against violence; and at the cost of American blood and treasure, also suffered our share of heartbreaks and losses in this conflict?

AC said...

Ummph! That happened to me in the parking lot of Walmart not too long ago. I was in the lane to get a parking place, behind several other cars, stopped, and the larger vehicle in a space began to back out. I could see what was going to happen and was helpless to make it stop. No speed, but a sudden kathunk anyway. There was just a small dent to the rear passenger side as most of her (mom's) car towered over mine. She just couldn't see me I guess, although she was already on the cell when she hopped out of the car. Right before she burst into teenaged driver tears. "I'll have to get my mom to come from work,..." she warbled.

Gosh, it was hot and golly gee, it was just a little dent on an older car. It was on the same side of the car that my mom dented when she crashed into her mailbox when she reversed after crashing first through her garage door, right before she signed over the car to me. I said to just "forget it". She was weeping so hard, I just couldn't stand to stand there with her any longer.

Did you hear the interview on Laura Ingraham with Jon Voight? Apparently he has had quite the idea change since "Coming Home", is friends and political collegues with Gary Sinise, etc. It was a "best Of" show yesterday but I'd missed it on first run. Pretty interesting, indeed.

Beverly said...

First of all, glad you're o.k.

I love Emma Claire's name also. That is quite a crop of youngsters.

I wish I had read Peggy Noonan's article. "To old times" indeed.

Frasier said...

Thats very thought provoking about the Iraqi kids.I never thought of it that way.Even the parents will be able to say what they were doing when Saddam was hung(hanged?)
Glad you are doing okay!
These candidates have very young kids!!!Is'nt that a sign of a trend though.Most couples opt to have kids later than before?

Anonymous said...

I'm glad you survived the dreaded teen driver run-in. It *is* a scary thing to be so unexpectedly bumped like that.

I love Gary Sinise, for all sorts of reasons. Now I have a new one.

Thinking about you in advance of your New Orleans adventure. I hope it is a lovely one. And for the record, you couldn't be more right about Central Market!!

Jolene said...

The link to righttruth leads me to some odd page date 2006?