John Swinburn

The afternoon of December 28, 2016 could have been a horrible and possibly my very last afternoon. I credit my survival to my quick reaction, steering my car quickly into the lane for oncoming traffic when I saw the car coming in my direction hydroplane across the yellow line into my lane. The vehicle missed me by inches as it flew off the road to my right, then rolled at least once before landing on its top on the driver’s side. The undercarriage of the car faced the roadway, far enough below the road that cars on what had been my side of the road would have not seen it unless they were looking for it.

I pulled my car around the corner, jumped out, pulled out my cell phone, and ran toward the car—whose engine was still running—ten feet or more down the embankment.  As I got near enough to see the front windshield, I could tell it was shattered and partially torn away from the car. I called 911 and then climbed down the embankment toward the car, alongside another guy who stopped a minute or so after the accident. A woman’s voice suddenly screamed out for help. I responded that the police and rescue were on the way. She asked if we could help them out of the car (she said there were two of them; I could not see her, behind the shattered windshield, but I saw a young man who seemed to be sitting sideways on the passenger seat. He was calm and alert, but he was bleeding; blood dripped down the car’s roof from his head. He claimed to be cut but not badly injured. The young woman was terrified. She kept saying “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry!” We asked her to turn off the engine; she did. A few moments later, another man made his way down to the car, just as I was trying to pry the windshield from its frame with a pine branch; the glass gave way just a bit, but sent a mist of broken glass in my face. I had no gloves, so I couldn’t grab the glass with my hands without getting cut up. The woman again said, “I’m so sorry!” The latest arrival told her she had nothing to be sorry for, then suggested she pray with him. She responded that she was sorry that she almost hit another car head on and hoped the person in that car was okay. I told her I was that driver and she didn’t hit me and I was fine. I tried to calm her, but she was frantic and apologetic. She said, over and over again, “my father’s going to kill me and he’s never going to let me drive again.”

A police officer arrived and made his way down to the car. He determined immediately it was going to be impossible to get the people out of the car without help, so he radioed for the fire department and an ambulance. A fire truck with two firemen arrived a few minutes later, then another police car. Another fireman, who was off-duty, drove up and asked the others whether he needed to suit up; they said yes, we have two people trapped. So, he pulled off the side of the road and in no time he came back to the scene, fulled decked out in gear. Next, an ambulance arrived on scene. The firemen pulled equipment out of their truck and took it down to the car. By that time, I had gotten out of the way and was not in a position to see what they were doing.

As I was watching all this unfold, another car pulled up and two women got out and ran toward the scene. One of the women gasped and said “Oh no!” I assumed she was the mother of one or both of the car’s occupants. But a little later, I learned from her that the young man in the car was a homeless kid who they had taken into their home and the woman was his girlfriend.

There was nothing more I could do, so I headed toward my car. But I wanted to wait until the occupants of the car were rescued. So I stood at the corner, near my car, and waited. Shortly, I could see the male passenger standing outside the car. The fireman led him a few feet from the vehicle, then another one put a brace of some sort around the guy’s neck and the firemen slowly led him to the ambulance. Next, I saw the woman rising from behind the car. They led her to the ambulance, as well.

When I got back to my car, I decided to take a photo of the scene. Not a very good photo, I realize. This is the second time I’ve seen a car fly off the road at that intersection, which is just beyond a rather sharp curve. The last time, the guy driving was able to climb out of his car. I don’t know what can be done to make that intersection safer, but having seen pretty bad wrecks there twice and having heard about others in the same place, I think it’s time I ask the powers that be to explore options.

For those who know Hot Spring Village, the accident was at the intersection of Barcelona and the Castano Drive/Palisandro Drive intersection.

The sound a vacuum cleaner makes on a clear, cool morning is no different from the noise escaping its disquieting form on cloudy days. But it seems different. The cacophony of vacuum cleaners has no legitimate place on cool, clear mornings. Their presence only sullies the sweet skies with surly, satanic sounds. Bright winter mornings deserve clean, sparkling sounds, gentle commotions like wind chimes or the chatter of ice packs cracking in the sunlight. The sound of hooves on a cobblestone street is another acceptable sound for clear, cool, winter mornings. If I had a sound file of such music, I would play it now. It would take me back to a time before I existed, a time when the air was pure and maple syrup was a rare treat, enjoyed only on mornings that commanded the presence of bacon and pancakes. That simple sound would fill me with memories of drinking buttermilk; and coffee strong enough to break the stoneware mug attempting to contain it. Sounds are like smells; they dredge memories from beneath layer upon layer of sticky experience, exposing them to the present, as if making yesterday into today. If we allow ourselves to examine our negative experiences—no matter how shallow or deep—with some intensity, we find that dwelling on the underbelly of life exposes us to its opposite, through recollection and fantasy. That’s the lesson I take away from my displeasure with the sound of a vacuum cleaner this morning. Would that I could, or would, learn from every such experience. I could, if only I willed it to be so.

I awakened in the same miserable cave as the one that prompted last night’s post. It’s cold and damp and hopeless in here. The sun is long since hidden and I have reason to believe it will not rise in the morning sky; our nearest star sensed the coming doom and left for a galaxy friendlier than the Milky Way. So, too, our nearest planets. They reckon something unpleasant is about to unfold, so they disappeared into the night sky, seeking a new, kinder, and more forgiving gravitational attachment. Everywhere I look, people and places and ideas are scurrying about, trying hard to find a place on the spectrum of visible light devoid of anything orange. The only hopeful spectrum to be found is in utter darkness; illumination, once a treasure to behold, has become the face of horror.

Looking around this once beautiful planet, I see ugliness everywhere. Dictatorships, assassinations, terrorism, and raw greed turn truth upside down, spilling sewage into the air supply and filling milk cartons with gasoline and mercury. Last night, I thought the only hope for humanity was its elimination. This morning, the thought has become certainty. Perhaps Donald Trump, his primitive brain itching to send the nuclear codes to his tiny fingers, is indeed our salvation.

I haven’t ridden a cross-country bus in many years. But for quite some time I’ve wanted to be exposed to people with whom I rarely interact, people who either choose not to travel in the more modern modes of personal automobiles or in airplanes. I doubt I’d strike up conversations; I just want to see what it’s like to be among them. I suppose I could do it any time I feel like it, but I would rather take a trip with a partner, someone who shares my interest in having the experience. The last time I took a long distance bus trip probably took place when I was just a kid; I rode to Dallas from Corpus Christi and back to visit my aunt and go to Six Flags Over Texas. I must have been only twelve or thirteen at the time. I had an odd experience on that trip, in which an older man tried to put his hands on me and my two traveling companions. I told the driver and the man was put off the bus; I don’t remember now whether he was taken off instantly or removed at the next stop. That sort of danger was, as far as I knew, very uncommon; maybe it’s more common today.

I think exposure to dangerous people increases exponentially when the tone of interchange in society at large gets harsh and ugly. The next four years, under a narcissistic madman who has plans to do nothing less than establish a reckless and dangerous plutocracy, will be among the ugliest I have ever seen, I expect. Maybe the idea of getting on a bus and hitting the road is my way of expressing my desire to just run away. But we cannot do that. Because while he’s “draining the swamp,” he’ll be trying to drain Social Security of our retirement funds and our bank accounts of our savings.

Had the universe operated as it should, Home Depot would have delivered, yesterday, a new American Standard Champion 4 High-Efficiency 1.28 GPF Single Flush Elongated Toilet. I was given a window of delivery of 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., meaning I might have been required to be home for a fourteen hour period, just waiting. But, at around 11:15, I picked up the phone, even though the caller ID was for an unfamiliar caller (normally, I ignore such calls): Cardinal Logistics. The caller was a driver for the company, who said he was about to leave Benton with my toilet. I said I’d be waiting.

“I’m driving a 40-foot semi; will I have any difficulties reaching your house?”

“Yes, very probably. Aside from very steep hills and sharp turns, delivery to my house is down a very steep driveway. I don’t think you can deliver it here with your truck.”

“Do you have any suggestions?”

“Um, not really.”

“Well, we just deliver for them, uh…”

“My only suggestion is to return it to Home Depot.”

“Okay, I appreciate that. It’ll save me from wasting an hour.”

And that was that. I called Home Depot’s customer service, who transferred me to the Benton store, which was responsible for filling the order. They cannot do anything to refund my money until the Cardinal Logistics driver returns the toilet. And they offered no option of an alternative mode of delivery. If I had a pickup, I could have simply bought it at the store. But I do not have a pickup. And the box is far too large to fit in the back of our little vehicle. Had I ordered a toilet from Lowe’s in Hot Springs, the toilet would have been delivered on a small truck, easily capable of maneuvering the hills of Hot Springs Village. But Lowe’s doesn’t carry the one we chose; only Home Depot carries it.

I’m growling and it’s not even 6:30 a.m. yet. That’s not the best way to start the day. I will see about rebooting.

I’ve written before about my little notebooks. I still keep the little spiral-bound pads on which I write grocery lists and reminders about programs I hear on the radio that prompt me to want to explore ideas or people some time later. Sometime, I come across an old notebook that contains a shopping list. Usually, I mark through items I’ve placed in my cart or basket, so when I find an old list with items that haven’t been marked off, I wonder whether I ever bought the items. “Red bell pepper. 3 or 4 tomatoes. Freezer paper. Freezer tape. ” Have I gone without red bell peppers and tomatoes and freezer gear since I wrote that list, or did I just fail to mark the items off? Clearly, I just failed to mark them off. But why? Okay, with so few items on the list, the necessity of marking them off is not so crucial; I wouldn’t fill my cart with dozens of tomatoes, not realizing I’d already put the 3 or 4 I needed in the cart.

My note pads aren’t always about shopping lists and reminders. Sometimes, they are planning tools. For example, I found a couple of pages of notes this morning that I distinctly recall writing; those pages would be meaningless to anyone but me. They comprise hand-drawn cells, within which I wrote the names of wine. “Pinot Noir, Carol. Les Garigues Côte du Rhône, La Vieille Ferme Rosé, Jacob’s Creek Shiraz  Cabernet. Clos du Bois Cabernet. Clos du Bois Merlot.” This list goes on. You might recognize the words as descriptors of wine and you’d be right. The lists were made as schematics of which bottles of wine were stored where in two locations. You see, I found it modestly annoying to have to pull the wine bottles out of their places to know which wines were where.

But back to reminders. One note I came across this morning was simply “Today’s Special. 2009 film.” I did not recall that, so I searched Father Google for answers. It’s a comedy film made in 2009 about a young man who rediscovers his heritage and his passion for life by immersing himself in cooking Indian food. Though I don’t remember writing it, the subject is of instant interest now, so it must have been just as interesting when I wrote it.

Finally, though this is not from a hand-written note but, instead, about an article I found fascinating that I want to remember: https://newrepublic.com/article/138068/last-unknown-man. It’s about anonymity and its demise. It’s absolutely riveting reading.

Something I wrote in an email a few years ago found its way to my consciousness yesterday; I liked what I said, so I decided to memorialize it here. Is that the height of arrogance or is the fact I admit I enjoy something I wrote enough to want to share it an admission of humanity? I’ll let someone else be the judge.

I love the idea of someone who knows the law, but is not of it, sitting on the Supreme Court.  In fact, I would support the concept on courts of all types.  Lawyers too often believe their own hype about their own near-divinity.  They would be better at meting out justice if their opinions were subject to a filter of compassion and practical logic, in addition to the standard of rigid adherence to constitutional and case law.  Of course the public policy ramifications of that sort of change would be earth-shattering!

I wrote this as if it were a “truth,” even though I know full-well many lawyers do not fit the stereotype I painted with my words. One of my nephews is an attorney; he is not like the lawyer I described. I have friends who are attorneys. They do not fit the stereotype. But I cling to it, nonetheless, because it is true of enough lawyers to color my perception of the profession. And, I should admit, I once gave serious thought to attending law school. That was well after I graduated from college, but I seriously thought about it because I found the law fascinating. I loved the logic at its core; the logic that can argue against itself in good conscience and applaud success even in defeat.  But that was not to be. Maybe that was for the best; I am afraid I might have turned in to one of the lawyers with whom I take great offense. I may have allowed myself to believe my own stories about my greatness. Some people do. I was never able to concoct such stories. But that is another story in itself.

People who know the law but who are not of it comprise too small a minority in the United States. That is, in part, because laws are far too complex and too prevalent. But it’s also because we do not give lay people who know the law enough appreciation and enough opportunity to share their insights. Laws are simply ‘cookbook’ rules that attempt to shape civil engagement through legal pronouncements of morality. But they arise through the lens of morality in play at the time they are conceived. Over time, the arbiters of the meaning and application and interpretation of laws see through different lenses, yet they are (ostensibly) bound by the intent of the framers of the laws for which they are responsible to interpret.

I do not know exactly where I am going with this. Maybe I should not have started writing on a subject about which I have absolutely no credentials. But that logic plays into the hands of the lawyers who see themselves as the divine tellers of  truth. Achh! For now, I will simply stop writing and allow my thoughts to find their permanent place on the internet where, perhaps a thousand years hence, someone will read what I wrote and decide “the author may have been inept and inarticulate, but he had a point.”

I have something else to say, but it does not fit well into this post, so either I will write another one now or I will make a note to write another one later. Capisci?

For years, I’ve wanted to explore how little money would be required for me to live decently, comfortably. How many dollars would it take, I ask myself, to have not just a tolerable, but a comfortable life without all the unnecessary luxuries that I treat as necessities? When one constitutes one-half of a couple, one does not impose such wishes on the other half. I’m relatively certain the other half of my couple has no interest in exploring the fringes of asceticism, though, so it’s not something I’m going to push. That notwithstanding, I still wonder how little cash would be required for me to live comfortably?

It’s not just curiosity. It’s a genuine interest in knowing whether our modern society in the USA and the world at large has deceived us into thinking we must have money to acquire comfort. I tend to think we’ve done more than a little self-training that’s led us to conclude we cannot get by without loads of money and all it can buy. And we’ve trained ourselves to believe we must depend on strangers to supply us with what we need in return for cash. What if, I ask myself, groups of people formed collectives which shared responsibilities for growing and preparing food, building and maintaining housing, etc.? Communes, I think they’re called. I know, it’s been tried. Some say communal living constitutes a failed experiment. But looking at the history of many peoples, I would argue against that’s not true. We’ve simply deceived ourselves into thinking individual self-sufficiency is preferable to collectivism. In my heart of hearts, I think I’m a socialist.