A "Grand Theft" Cautionary Tale
...Occasionally, however, we see a news story that we can really relate to because it touches on our own experience on several points.
Recently a 6-year old boy in the Northern Neck area of Virginia missed his school bus or something. His father had left for work, while his mother was still asleep. So he jumped into the family car (the article I read said he stole it, but how can you steal your own family car?), and away he wheeled. He was anxious to get to school on time, 16 miles away, so that he wouldn't miss the free breakfast there, plus he had to go to PE later. And he almost made it, though he was so short that he had to drive largely standing up.
The area was rural, and he safely crossed a bridge and went through several interesections. Apparently he went along at a pretty good clip, too, passing peaple and such. But then, only a mile or so from school and the great meal, he didn't look far enough down a two-lane road, and wouldn't you know. We can all identify with this. Nothing less than a tractor-trailer showed up, coming on fast in the other lane.
The kid's stubby 6-year arms quickly whipped the car back into the right lane, but then -- this, too, could've happened to anybody but rarely does when you are only 6, except on computers -- in his haste he overcorrected, went off the road, up an embankment and slammed the rear of the car into a utility pole, finally bringing his excursion to a halt, and he missed the meal but not the PE later, and his parents were arrested.
I am familiar with the Northern Neck. It is a beautiful and peaceful place, and I can see how it wasn't that much of a miracle for the family car and the utility pole to have been the only things that took a beating. The Neck is a pleasant drive of 200 miles or so east from here, and two of my best friends, L. and his beautiful wife of many years, M., live there. We visited them a few years ago, and we have a standing invitation to come back whenever we want, but it is another epic journey for me.
So I wouldn't have voted, either, for arresting the parents. The report said the father was under court order not to leave the kids alone while the mother was sleeping. But quite often reporters are no more diligent about asking the right questions than the ones with the answers are in giving them. So what that court order was about is hard to guess.
But if that incident was indeed what so many would say it is, then arresting the parents strikes me as being a strange and ungrateful way to give thanks for the miracle. But the public, using the law as its always willing and iron-gloved surrogate, always has to jab its sticky fingers into everything. I suppose the law would defend itself by saying the arrests will prevent similar incidents in the future, but how many 6-year olds are even aware of such cautionary tales, and also they don't stay 6 for long.
And anyway, we might find that a lot if not almost all male kids ignite high risk escapades from which I have always thought the big miracle is that they escape so often, nearly though not quite scot free with memories, misgivings, and maturity being what they are. This puts them in better position a little later to make their lives available to professional patriots and others to be expended in wars or other similarly stupid activities. As naturally cautious as I am, I had a couple of early events myself, and when I was older than 6, though, unlike this one, none of those would have physically injured anyone else had they taken the direst road.
Another way in which I can identify is that the kid had already learned and polished his driving skills on computer games such as "Grand Theft Auto." I've never played that, but I do happen to own hundreds of other PC computer games that I collected when I was younger, in my 40's, 50's, and 60's, including a number that involve driving everything from subs to cars to aircraft to space cruisers. But "Grand Theft Auto" has been a subject of sharp discussions for years, because it is so "graphic," and I believe that I've even read that you don't lose too many points if you happen to pick off a pedestrian or two while you're at it.
So that's another credit we'll have to hand to the kid and to the genes he was given and the way he was brought up through all those many years by his parents, though I suspect they'll stay in a state of shock for much longer than they will be shut away.
Anybody would be.
Recently a 6-year old boy in the Northern Neck area of Virginia missed his school bus or something. His father had left for work, while his mother was still asleep. So he jumped into the family car (the article I read said he stole it, but how can you steal your own family car?), and away he wheeled. He was anxious to get to school on time, 16 miles away, so that he wouldn't miss the free breakfast there, plus he had to go to PE later. And he almost made it, though he was so short that he had to drive largely standing up.
The area was rural, and he safely crossed a bridge and went through several interesections. Apparently he went along at a pretty good clip, too, passing peaple and such. But then, only a mile or so from school and the great meal, he didn't look far enough down a two-lane road, and wouldn't you know. We can all identify with this. Nothing less than a tractor-trailer showed up, coming on fast in the other lane.
The kid's stubby 6-year arms quickly whipped the car back into the right lane, but then -- this, too, could've happened to anybody but rarely does when you are only 6, except on computers -- in his haste he overcorrected, went off the road, up an embankment and slammed the rear of the car into a utility pole, finally bringing his excursion to a halt, and he missed the meal but not the PE later, and his parents were arrested.
I am familiar with the Northern Neck. It is a beautiful and peaceful place, and I can see how it wasn't that much of a miracle for the family car and the utility pole to have been the only things that took a beating. The Neck is a pleasant drive of 200 miles or so east from here, and two of my best friends, L. and his beautiful wife of many years, M., live there. We visited them a few years ago, and we have a standing invitation to come back whenever we want, but it is another epic journey for me.
So I wouldn't have voted, either, for arresting the parents. The report said the father was under court order not to leave the kids alone while the mother was sleeping. But quite often reporters are no more diligent about asking the right questions than the ones with the answers are in giving them. So what that court order was about is hard to guess.
But if that incident was indeed what so many would say it is, then arresting the parents strikes me as being a strange and ungrateful way to give thanks for the miracle. But the public, using the law as its always willing and iron-gloved surrogate, always has to jab its sticky fingers into everything. I suppose the law would defend itself by saying the arrests will prevent similar incidents in the future, but how many 6-year olds are even aware of such cautionary tales, and also they don't stay 6 for long.
And anyway, we might find that a lot if not almost all male kids ignite high risk escapades from which I have always thought the big miracle is that they escape so often, nearly though not quite scot free with memories, misgivings, and maturity being what they are. This puts them in better position a little later to make their lives available to professional patriots and others to be expended in wars or other similarly stupid activities. As naturally cautious as I am, I had a couple of early events myself, and when I was older than 6, though, unlike this one, none of those would have physically injured anyone else had they taken the direst road.
Another way in which I can identify is that the kid had already learned and polished his driving skills on computer games such as "Grand Theft Auto." I've never played that, but I do happen to own hundreds of other PC computer games that I collected when I was younger, in my 40's, 50's, and 60's, including a number that involve driving everything from subs to cars to aircraft to space cruisers. But "Grand Theft Auto" has been a subject of sharp discussions for years, because it is so "graphic," and I believe that I've even read that you don't lose too many points if you happen to pick off a pedestrian or two while you're at it.
So that's another credit we'll have to hand to the kid and to the genes he was given and the way he was brought up through all those many years by his parents, though I suspect they'll stay in a state of shock for much longer than they will be shut away.
Anybody would be.
posted by Carl (aka Sofarsogoo) | 12:19 PM
1 Comments:
It actually concerns me more that this 6 year old child is playing Grand Theft Auto than that he drove 16 miles to the school.
None of this makes sense. Why was the mother sleeping? Why WOULD the father leave with the mother sleeping? Why was he under court order not do so?
And where is that poor kid now?
What a mess!
Go Gators!
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