Home safe and sound

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postaday2014, roads, safety, snow

Today, Wednesday, the Northeast got hit with another snowstorm. Us, being in Virginia this morning or really until 3:00 this afternoon, saw none of the snow, only freezing rain this morning. By the time we headed out of Virginia, the roads were dry and safe and we were making excellent time driving up north.

Granted we were driving towards the snow but as the miles came and went through Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and finally New Jersey, we still hadn’t seen a bit of snow. I wasn’t unhappy with that, au contraire, it made driving very easy.

We didn’t see serious snow until we got on the Henry Hudson and even then the roads were clear. New York State did an excellent job of keeping their roads safely clear and maintained. Heading into Connecticut, we were extremely lucky that all along route 84 there wasn’t any snow falling and that it had been plowed earlier, so it was still safe. We also lucked out on route 8, it still wasn’t snowing and it was only towards the very end, after we had passed two police cars with their lights on stopped, blocking a crashed car off the side of route 8, that the roads had started to get slick due to falling snow.

Connecticut is the second wealthiest state per capita, but its actual state budget is close to the red each and every winter because due to their low tax rate, they never have enough in the coffers to keep their roads plowed in the winter. As I was driving, I couldn’t wait to hit the Massachusetts line because I knew that we would be home free, even if the snow started coming down harder. And I was correct, the line of demarcation between Massachusetts and Connecticut is astounding to see, it is literally a difference of two inches in depth of snow versus clean and salted black top. I love driving in Massachusetts in the winter because our state highway personnel really take care of our roads, we may have higher taxes, but I prefer to drive safely over ending up in a horrendous accident. It is really a matter of priorities; invest together in the common good for everyone or have more money individually and have dangerous roads. I prefer safety.

Daily prompt: Safety first

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postaday2013, safety, travels, unsafe

Share the story of a time you felt unsafe.

The first time that I remember feeling unsafe while traveling was with my sister during the summer we went backpacking through France, Italy and Greece. We had arrived by train into Marseilles, a city that my sister and I had never visited before, we knew of it, but not really, as much as any 17 year old or 20 year old would know of a city. We had a plan of course, my sister and I had friends just outside of Marseilles and we were going to track them down once we had found a hotel. It seemed to be a logical plan at the time. So when we arrived at the train station we disembarked from the train and left the train station and we found ourselves in a very eerie and silent part of the city. There weren’t any women outside, only men and they were looking at us in ways that made us very, very uncomfortable. I had no idea that the train station was located in the Arab quarter of Marseilles and we had to cross it to get to the center of the city where we could find youth hostels and other small hotels. I didn’t show that I was afraid, I took my sister’s hand and we walked up the street towards where I hoped was to be the center of the city, I was looking for avenues, boulevards, people, anything at this point. What I wasn’t aware of at the time was this port city was part of the white slave trade and that young girls went missing occasionally, I’m glad that I wasn’t aware right then and there because I don’t know if I could have maintained my composure but I marched onward with my sister and we found the big avenues and the center of Marseilles. We called our friends and they came to rescue us and we had a happy ending, when our mother found out that we had been roaming in the Arab quarter, ahe almost fainted from fright. We were lucky and we were safe.

Would removing all guns from this earth make us safer?

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guns, postaday2011, safety, warfare

This question brought to mind the fact that weapons are as old as tools in our collective history. Sadly that also brings to mind that weapons needn’t be guns to be dangerous, anything can be made into a lethal weapon. Recently I watched a few minutes of a news story regarding juvenile detention centers and how creative the occupants are at creating handmade lethal weapons. Until we eradicate the desire to do harm to others from the human experience, I don’t see whether or not we have guns being the issue as to how to keep us safer.