Chapter 2: The Blue Water Bridge

A few new things.

First, I’m choosing topics with a Dungeons & Dragons online dice roller at http://www.wizards.com/dnd/dice/dice.htm. I made a list of 79 topics I wish to cover over the coming weeks and I’m basing whatever I do next on the online dice roller. With rare exceptions I’m going to write the topic based on the dice roller. I thought this would be a unique way to go about this. The first roll I did would have been a Sarnia topic and I didn’t want to start there. This one came up, and I think that this is a great place to start.

Second, Port Huron’s very own Times Herald reported on 2-3-08 that someone is leading a movement for Port Huron to secede from America. I just hope he doesn’t find this page, myself having defined a hypothetical border for a spiritual Port Huron only days ago. I really had to start this now, didn’t I?

Anyways, on to my tale about the Blue Water Bridge.

***

Even when I had a pretty healthy fear of heights I really never had a problem with driving or being driven over the Blue Water Bridge. I’m sure part of it deals with the short distance it covers when compared to something like the Mackinac Bridge. The Mackinac Bridge is over 5 miles long whereas the Blue Water Bridge is a mile and a quarter tops. I’ve had nightmares as a kid about the bridge. During a forced trip with the grandparents in 9th grade my grandfather was prone to making jokes about my fear of the bridge. These jokes were usually variations on “Let’s drive off the bridge” or “Let’s ride the railing.”

The Blue Water Bridge on the other hand is something simple to conquer. Having tackled my fear of heights years ago in Chicago (looking down on the Chi from the top floor of the observatory will do that for you) the Blue Water Bridge is something I can handle. Its not like I will walk on it or anything but I can drive it. The only times I’ve ever been nervous driving on it were the times when it would snow.

Five years ago yesterday I was hit by a semi that was coming off this bridge.

I was coming home from my Intro to Inorganic Chemistry class. It was a late class but we had a test and I was done early. It was rainy out that night. I was on I-94 driving toward my exit. I’m driving past the exit from the bridge and a semi is exiting. He gets to the lane on the left while I am in the right. I am trying to make sure that I do not get near him.

I am near him. He starts to merge into me.

The side of my car is hit. This causes the front end of my car to go in front of the semi. The semi hits the front of my car. I drive into a wall just as my airbags deploy. The rain certainly didn’t help me with any of this.

After calling my dad and a snippy 911 operator somebody comes up and starts to talk to me.

“Why did you hit me?”

Those words hung in the air long for what seemed to be enough time for me to actually learn and understand inorganic chemistry. I imagined that this was the driver that hit me but I could not comprehend why he would actually say that. As if I would somehow miss the semi that is to my left.

“I didn’t hit you!”

The driver then starts to talk, but we are right next to I-94 and it is raining. I cannot understand a word he says.

The police show up. There are two of them. One cop for the each of us. I’m in one cop car and I have no idea where the other guy went. I gave my story and he gave his.

When we were finished the cop questioning the driver said that he wasn’t the one who hit me. He just heard something over the radio and wanted to see if he could help. I had no energy to argue or try to prove him wrong. Its not like I was able to see who did it. As if it wasn’t dark and rainy already there was all the powder from the deployed airbags that prevented any sort of sight for me.

After it was all over Andy Ketchum called me to check on me. For a week or so after the accident my favorite movie was Unbreakable for the obvious reasons. In this time of being obsessed with Unbreakable my dad calls me while I’m at school. The insurance adjustor took one look at the car and immediately said it wasn’t my fault.

He also said that I was lucky to be alive.

I will never know who hit me. I used to have the case number for the accident but I lost it years ago. I’m just happy to be alive.