Janice Williams Loves Austin

Fred Eaglesmith has a song about “it’s days like this I miss my Dad.” That’s how I felt yesterday when I had a little minor fender bender on MoPac. Not that I needed Daddy in that instance, but cars were one thing we had to talk about. It would have given me a good reason to call and talk to him a bit. He would have been concerned, but laughed it off and teased me about stopping too short and creating the wreck myself and I would have said, no no, that’s not what happened. He would have said, “Alright, you need to go to a bodyshop and get an estimate…” or some other sage advice from a man that loved to get to go to body shops or car dealerships or gas stations any time he could.

The wreck really was minor. A couple of weeks ago I had another little tiny bump where I rolled up onto a car (not on MoPac, but on a yield/turn entering the service road). No damage there and I was quite grateful. This time, MoPac was totally packed going southbound and I passed several fender benders and I was being super cautious. But traffic got very tight just before downtown and I had to stop short. It really wasn’t those stops where you think, “OH NO—- WHEW.” I stopped without worry, but had the worry for the guy behind me. Sure enough, he bumped into me, going very slowly. We moved our way across 2 or 3 lanes to get to the side and it was a good place to pull off, not just shoulder, but up on the grass away from the traffic. He was a nice young man, super apologetic, felt awful. I felt awful for him, too. It is so lousy to have a wreck like that, and who hasn’t had one? Fortunately, I haven’t had a wreck like that since 1992 and that was a rain slicked street in Dallas. (KNOCK ON WOOD) His car took the worst of it. I think my only damage is that my tire cover on the spare is torn. We’ll see about getting that replaced, but, thank God, the car body is fine and I’m fine.