Gathering Speed

I think I’m pretty good about being an American. It’s not hard to get a C+ in that at all. You just need to pay your taxes, stand for the National Anthem, and not board-check Margie, the little old lady with cataracts the size of DirecTV dishes, when she tries to merge into your lane on Lakeshore drive. We might want to. After all, the daffy woman’s left turn signal has been on since the Carter administration. But we don’t. We show restraint. And a lot of that comes from the psychotically basic of civilized duties: trust.

Considering how many people I know that can’t drive a golf cart in a straight line and have been busted for DUI, it’s an absolute miracle that the driving system works. You stay in your lane, we’ll stay in hours. We’ll observe speed limits (at least the signs, while we gun past them). It’s really amazing. Wow, we really trust the shit out of each other, don’t we? In today’s Patriot Act and identity theft America, how do we trust each other? Because we trust ourselves to do our part. I’m trusting Margie not to t-bone me because she’s trusting me to do the same.

But, if there’s a car crash, it has to be someone’s fault.

Accidents happen all of the time, way less than they probably should. The more stuff auto manufacturers cram into cars to distract us, the more likely we are to be…distracted. I’ve fished for a CD in the foot-area of the passenger seat while on the highway. If little ol’ Margie didn’t see me in her larger than average blind spot, I would have been dust. Accidents are accidents, sometimes bad things just happen. If you’re boozing, bad things are slightly more likely to happen.

The reason I’m talking about this is that I just read that the father of Josh Hancock, the St. Louis Cardinals pitcher who died in a fatal car crash, is suing the bar his son was visiting for over-serving him. Over-serving. Josh wanted booze and the bar served him. And they’re getting sued. For not protecting young Josh against himself and his own horrible judgement. Let’s break this down.

I know people who it is goddamn impossible to tell if they’re wasted. I know some people who become more eloquent after a six or seven beer buzz. The fact that it is ever, EVER on the bartender for serving someone who made the horrible decision to get behind the wheel of a car while blacked out is totally insane. Also, a little indisputable fact, no one who gets in an alcohol related accident or popped for a DUI does so on their first go round. This was probably closer to the 30th time for the late Josh Hancock.

What in the holy hell is wrong with us? People are suing McDonald’s for making them fat; it’s the worst food on the planet. Yes, the millet the peasant workers were eating in Seven Samurai is of a higher nutritional quality. People suing cigarette companies for making products that kill them. The guy who sued the lawnmower company after picking it up and using it on a vertical hedge. The commercials that show an H2 diving under the sea and turning into a Bond car have a tiny disclaimer that reads “Simulation, do not attempt.” What happened to trusting people not to be idiots? How can we plan to protect people who have no common sense? Wouldn’t Darwinism have kicked in back when this kid was eating paste in the 1st grade? What’s so wrong with that? It drives me out of my goddamn mind that we need to modify our rules to cater to people who can’t be Trusted to look out for themselves and each other. God forbid someone feel bad about being called stupid, even if they’re destined to pull a Death Proof on an unsuspecting family of four who Trusted them to not do exactly that.

Hancock’s father is upset and is looking for someone to blame other than his son who made a bad decision and died for it. He violated the trust of everyone else on the road by not being in full capacity to drive. There’s that T word again, a cornerstone of being an American citizen. Another one is responsibility, and in this case, it all lies with Josh Hancock.