An Afternoon in Hendersonville, NC

I had a good day planned, but as is said, "The best laid plans of mice and men. . . ."

My son is past due for getting his learner permit, and my 30th high school reunion is looming without a venue for the meeting. So, I had a plan that would move both of these things along. I needed a replacement birth certificate for my young man, but because he was born in Henderson County, North Carolina, getting said document required a trip to the county court house in Hendersonville. After that, I thought, I'll go by Madison High School, from which I graduated in 1977, and see what I can set up for September. It's my weekend at Mom's in North Carolina anyway, so all this seemed doable.

Philosophical Pause: When something bad happens to you, do you ever think of the decisions you made during the day that allowed you to be--or forced you to be--in the exact place and at the exact time where and when the bad thing happened? I've been thinking about this all afternoon. As I was driving over the TN/NC mountains this morning, I thought that I could swing by Madison High School first, maybe see if I could have lunch with my cousin who teaches history there, and then go on down to Hendersonville in the afternoon. I decided against it, not wanting to be caught in the afternoon traffic that made Asheville a place I was glad to move away from. So I went on to Hendersonville, thinking that I'd go to the court house and then get some lunch before heading back to MHS. Then again, I was already hungry. Coming off the ramp at the Hendersonville exit, I got caught in the wrong lane and forced to turn into this little shopping center. I saw a Burger King on up the road, so I thought I'd just swing through the shopping center's parking lot, breeze through BK's drive-thru and then run on to the court house. Then in the shopping center I saw a chinese buffet, and the lot was full of cars. Must be good, I thought. I checked the time and decided to eat there. The place was quite good, and after a good meal I was back on the road and headed for the court house, still with plenty of time to do all I'd planned to do.

And then all this brought me to the moment when something bad happened.

I was a couple of blocks away from my left-hand turn onto Hendersonville's Main Street, and I was one lane away from the one I needed to make that left. I checked my side mirror and saw that I had three or four car-lengths of space to make my move. I turned on my turn signal, looking in the rearview mirror at the same time. I saw a gold PT Cruiser making the same move to the left. Figuring that we would just move into the left lane together, I made the fatal mistake of not checking my side mirror one more time and thus of not noticing that the PT Cruiser was apparently gunning it into the lane and trying to go around me. We weren't going fast, maybe 20 or 25 mph, so I didn't feel any sort of impact. The back right side of my CRV simply raised slightly and shook slightly. Then the PT Cruiser's horn was blaring at me. I quickly figured what had happened.

A traffic light stopped us, and I saw an older woman stand up quickly out of the Cruiser. She stomped up to my door, and I rolled down my window as she came.

"You hit me," this pissedoffredneckwoman said.

"I had on my turn signal," I said.

"I don't care what you had on," the pissedoffredneckwoman said.

Not feeling it was anything to block traffic over, I pulled made my left-hand turn at the light and found a pullover on Main Street big enough to accomodate both our vehicles. I got out and looked at my left rear bumper. Nothing. I looked at her right front bumper, and on top of it was a slight scrape, not more than a smudge really.

"I'm calling the police," the pissedoffredneckwoman said.

"All right," I said and got back in my car to wait.

Now, I'd always heard that if anybody hits another driver from behind, it is the fault of the driver in the rear, especially if the turn signal is used properly, which mine was.

To my surprise, the police officer told me that I was at fault, that the pissedoffredneckwoman "controlled the lane." I didn't know how to argue this. I'd never heard this idea before. (It was confirmed as a real thing to me later by a claim agent at my insurance company.) All I could think of was the charging foul in basketball, when the ref has to decide if the player who "drew" the charge had established a position before being plowed into by the player committing the foul. I doubted that the pissedoffredneckwoman had really established "control" of the lane, but she was from Hendersonville and I was from Tennessee. She was the home team, and I was the visiting team. No ref was looking, so the call went her way. So the collision was judged my fault. The traffic violation was charged at $25, and court costs were added to the tune of $110, making the subtotal of my afternoon $135. Of course, the probably increase in insurance premiums will make more of a mess.

And then the little things that follow on the heels of such an event:

• I decided I just get some cash from the NC State Employees Credit Union and pay today's fees off. From the nice women who got my son's birth certificate for me, I learned that a branch of the SECU was only a few blocks away. Although the afternoon was hot, I decided I needed a walk. After making the hike, I walked up to the 24-hour teller to be greeted by a little screen reading "Temporarily Out of Service."
• A little over nine miles south of Asheville, on I-26, traffic came to the stop I'd been dreading, so I exchanged the congestion of the Interstate for the more interesting congestion of Hendersonville Road.
• In Biltmore, I thought of something that would make me feel better and took a sudden right turn (no lane changes necessary) and wound my way along the Swannanoa River Road to Cold Stone Creamery.
• I was listening to this oldie rock station and realized that the remote broadcast the DJ kept cutting to was coming from the SunCom location right beside the Cold Stone Creamery. What's more, the voice on the radio was that of Chuck Finley, who had been a big supporter of Cody band music while working at another station in the early '90s. I started to go speak to him, but although the ice cream had made me feel better, it hadn't really improved my mood. So I took a quick look, saw that Chuck was involved in talking with somebody else, got in my CRV and left.

Now I'm at Zuma Coffee in Marshall. I didn't have coffee, but I made another attempt to feel better with an original grape Nehi. Like the ice cream, it helped some

But now that I've gotten the story out there--and off my back--I find that writing is what really helps!