Saturday, April 26, 2008
Keep your life on prom night
From the RoundTable blog
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Michael Edwards
Edwards is an English teacher at Hidden Valley High School in Roanoke County.
It's that most magical time of the year again, if you happen to be a high school junior or senior. All across the nation, the time of the senior prom is nigh. It is a night for magic, romance and, for some, tragedy. While the story that follows isn't about prom, it is true, it is tragic, and it deals with an issue that all too often occurs during the prom season: drinking and driving.
On Dec. 27, 1987, the Christmas cheer is still ... cheery. Peace and goodwill still reign for all mankind, at least for the night. Three youths, one 19, one 18, and Sandra, the only female, 16, are riding around the countryside on a Saturday night, as the town where they live has very few diversions for people of their ages.
Two of the youths in the old Ford truck have been celebrating a very special Christmas present: a pre-engagement ring. He has been drinking to his good fortune in finding someone he hopes one day will be his life partner. She loves him with the fierceness that accompanies all first loves.
Out of boredom, out of a sense of invulnerability, out of bravado, stupidity or any host of other emotions, he decides to see how fast this old Ford will take the curves outside the town limits. They are traveling on a paved ridgetop road, posted at 55, looking at a straight stretch ahead of perhaps three miles.
Sure, the road is narrow, but there is little traffic out tonight, so their little jaunt shouldn't pose any problems. At the end of the straight stretch is a little country store, and then the road twists into a series of curves, following the backbone of the ridge before sharply descending the mountain into town.
The rest of the story is known only through conjecture.
When the truck went by the store that late night, it was estimated to be traveling at about 110 mph. It slowed to negotiate the curves of the mountains. It flew though the first curve, then the left-hand second, then the right-hand third. There it stopped. Immediately. When the driver lost control of the truck in the third curve, he either did not see or could not avoid the car parked there. The truck and the youths plowed into the old Nixon-era hulk at 95 miles per hour. Within 24 hours, there would be no survivors.
If this were a happy holiday story instead of a true one, I would not have to tell about the phone call that reported the accident and changed the lives of families and countless friends in the middle of one night; of my mother's anguished screams awakening the family sleeping over for the holidays; of our run to the kitchen to find her on one hand and knees, phone in gripped fist, unable to accept the news on the other end; of the grief in the days to follow when the full details of the accident were learned; of the funeral that, by necessity, had to be with coffin closed; of the loss of potential, a life cut much too short; or, for some, of a breach of faith taking years to heal.
Sandra was my 16-year-old cousin. She had just started to come out of the shell of silence following her father's car accident some 10 years prior. When I last spoke with her, she told me excitedly of her new high school, a "really neat" guy she had met, and of possible plans for the future. We spoke more in that one visit than we had in our lifetimes.
Each year as I tell her story, I am reminded that those dreams never came to be. If you think that this could never happen to you, let me assure you that it could, that it could be your parents getting that phone call in the middle of the night, that it could be your dreams destroyed in the flash of a second. I ask you to make the choice: Don't drink and drive.
I have told Sandra's story in front of several congregations and classrooms in the past, hoping that, for at least one more prom season, her example will keep others from riding with someone who has been drinking. If telling her story here will convince just one of you to avoid the risks and stay sober during prom festivities, then this is one of the greatest gifts you can give me this year. Stay safe.
