August 2001

Today was the first day of fall semester. Monday’s are rather light for me, with only my Japanese class in the morning and nothing after that.

So I went to Japanese this morning, thinking, “Well, this’ll be a joy. Dietsch and a roomful of freshmen and sophomores. It’ll be like babysitting.” I entered the room, feeling rather smug, like I’m older than you, I’m smarter than you, and by God, I’m better than all of you.

I took a seat. The instructor handed out index cards and asked us to provide name, e-mail address, and a little bit about what we already know about Japan. I glanced over at the kid sitting to my left. I noticed that he was answering question 3 in Japanese, the little bastard.

“Great,” I thought. “First day, and I’m already out of my element.”

We had a typical first day lesson–learning how to introduce yourself and meet a new person in this language. If this were computer programming, we’d have done “Hello world!” today. But I was still a little overwhelmed. We learned several phrases in quick succession and I was having trouble remembering one even before learning the next. When it came time for practice, I needed the “kids” to remind of the phrases. I was a little embarrassed. Perhaps I shouldn’t have underestimated them.

But I did eventually pick up all the phrases. Language ability does decline as you age, so I’m sure their youth is an advantage to them. I’m hoping I won’t have to struggle through this class, but I’m prepared to work hard for it. I guess we’ll see.

I had a frightening thing happen today.

I was driving up to Indianapolis for our monthly movie night. (I meet several former colleagues once a month and tonight was the night.)

It was around 4:45 or so and I was going to do a bit of shopping beforehand. I was on the south side of Indy on 465, in the left lane (of three lanes), doing about 70mph.

I realized suddenly that I was in the blind spot of the driver of the pickup in the next lane, so I began to accelerate past him. At the same moment, he decided it was time to pass the car in front of him, so he began to move into my lane.

Without glancing over his left shoulder to make sure it was clear.

In rush hour traffic.

Whether he was fixing his hair, changing radio stations, eating a Big Mac, talking on his cell phone, or yanking his chicken, I’ll never know, but I do know what the bastard wasn’t doing–paying attention to traffic.

I noticed the truck moving in my direction and thought for a nanosecond–what the hell am I going to do now? I glanced over, saw the shoulder was empty, and checked all around me to make sure I could go there.

I pulled onto the shoulder to get out of his way, but I then saw, about a hundred feet in front of me, a large blown-out semi truck tire, directly in my path. The pickup driver hadn’t yet clued into what was happening and was running next to me in the left lane, so I had no choice but to hit the tire.

In the split second I had to think, I had to make a decision–namely, how do I hit the tire? It’s funny how people react in these situations. It’s usually either total panic or complete lucidity. The moment completely decompressed in my mind, like the seconds were stretching into hours. I actually had the time in only a few seconds to consider all options.

My choice was to straddle it. I knew if I hit it with a wheel, I’d risk blowing out my own tire or, worst-case scenario, flipping my car over. Even a blowout would very likely cause me to lose control at the speed I was driving, so straddling it and letting the tire go underneath the car seemed the only semi-smart choice.

So, I hit the tire.

I heard a series of loud bumps and scraping noises and felt my car vibrate all to hell. As the back of my car passed over the tire, I glanced into the rear-view mirror and saw the tire literally explode behind me, sending shards of rubber and steel-belt up into the air and then down onto the interstate.

At this point, the pickup driver finally realized that something was happening. He moved into the center lane and slowed down rather dramatically. I swear to you his speed dropped by about 10 to 15mph, because he disappeared from my view. I think during the three to four seconds in which this all occurred, he realized what had happened.

I pulled back onto the highway and gradually made my way to the right lane. I considered pulling off the road, but I decided that stopping on the highway at that time of day would be the stupidest move possible. I thought about leaving the road altogether, but I wasn’t sure where to stop or what to do. I continued on the highway.

I watched my gauges and lights carefully and paid very close attention to steering, acceleration, and braking. Somehow, everything was fine. I stayed on the road. Finally, on the east side of town, it dawned on me that the Saturn dealer in Fishers (the far northeast corner of the Indy metro area) would still be open. Even though my car seemed fine, having it checked out by someone very familiar with my car seemed smart.

But it was rush hour. I-69 was backed up onto 465, with traffic at a standstill. I got off on Allisonville Road and drove to the Castleton Arts movie theater, where I knew I’d find either Dave or Dione, both friends of mine. At this point, it was about 5:20.

I went in, used the bathroom, and asked Scott at the box office for the phone. I called the Saturn dealer and learned they were closing at 6, so I booked out of there without saying anything to Dione, who I assume was upstairs.

I was so shaken up I couldn’t speak clearly to Scott or the Saturn guy, but I still managed to get to the dealership.

The Saturn mechanic said there were problems with the heat shield and air deflector and a few other things underneath. The car’s drivable, but he urged me to fix it within a week. So tomorrow, I’ll call my insurance and figure out where to go next.

It’s an unreal thought and pardon the melodrama, but I honestly believe I nearly died today. I can’t fathom that the damage to my car was so minor and the damage to my body was nonexistent, but just inches in one direction or the other and one of my front wheels would have hit that tire and I’m not sure what would have happened.

I’m taking tomorrow (today, really) off. No chapters to edit, no housework, no billpaying, no worrying about the coming semester, nothing. I’m going for a bike ride and I’m going to read a while and I’m going to have dinner and wine with my friends here. Oh, and call my mom.

Sorry for keeping all of you so long, but I had to get this off my chest. It scared the hell out of me.

I was once describing to a friend the eating habits of the genus Dietsch–meat, usually fried, with every meal and sometimes with dessert as well. “In fact,” I continued, “if there were a way to have bacon in our coffee, we’d have done it!”

Little did I know….

I’m also fond of this page. What’s wrong here isn’t that the young bride used chicken fat to make cookies. Ooooooh no. It’s that she didn’t render that fat first.

All this, from the delectable Gallery of Regrettable Food:

Remember, folks, foods fried in SPRY are as digestible as if baked or broiled.

I purchased the Cosmos DVD set last week. Owning this wondrous series on DVD is a bit of a dream for me, but I have to give a bit of history to explain why.

Cosmos first aired on PBS in 1980. The series quickly won critical acclaim but more fortuitously, it premiered during an actor’s strike that temporarily crippled the broadcast networks (this, in days before cable had reached most U.S. households). Cosmos quickly became one the most popular programs ever to air on PBS. I can’t recall when I first saw it. I believe it must have been during one of the many repeated broadcasts of Cosmos. My copy of Carl Sagan’s companion hardcover dates to Christmas 1983, and I know I requested the book because of my deep love for the series, so I saw it sometime between my eleventh and fourteenth birthdays.

Sagan’s clear love of science, his eloquence, and the high production values of the program captivated me. (Cosmos employed some of the special effects artists from the Star Wars films.) Sagan expressed complex scientific ideas such as evolution and the origins of stars in clear, concise, down-to-earth language that was both clear to grasp and, in retrospect, poetic. Sagan did not merely educate, he inspired. Pay attention when some young Turk scientist explains a breakthrough in physics or astronomy; quite often if asked for her inspiration, she’ll be quick to cite Sagan and Cosmos.

In watching the first episode again Sunday night, I was surprised at how lucid and energized Sagan seemed. His sense of wonder and awe permeate this series and I quickly felt myself transported back to those days when I would race upstairs to watch Cosmos on the old TV in my mom’s bedroom. If I missed a single episode, it sure as hell wasn’t my idea; my passion and excitement for it were boundless. I vividly recall being overwhelmed by the sheer immensity of the universe (”Our own galaxy takes a quarter billion years to make a single rotation?”) and brimming with admiration for the ingenuity and genius of the scientists who uncovered the mysteries and secrets of our origins.

Cosmos was also my first real introduction to the idea of life on other planets. Now, when you read that, you might think I’m nuts. How could I have missed Star Wars? Star Trek? The Day the Earth Stood Still? Of course I was immersed in science-fiction as a child, but I knew instinctively that most science-fiction was mere fantasy. Cosmos, however, was my first inkling that there was a scientific likelihood of intelligent alien life. As Sagan explains, in a universe with ten billion trillion stars, what are the chances that ours is the only one with an inhabited planet?

But Sagan didn’t stop at astronomy or physics. Cosmos was significant for another fact: It rather brilliantly explained the philosophy of science and the methods of scientific inquiry. By explaining how scientists such as Eratosthenes and Aristotle, Democritus and Darwin reached their conclusions, Sagan opened my eyes to the wonder of science and the possibilities of human inquiry. These men and women weren’t handed revelation in a book or burning bush; they realized and understood the universe through their own ingenuity and determination.

And this leads to the other great understanding I owe to Carl Sagan, one I sadly forgot during my inane slide into religiosity: We are not here by design. This Earth and its inhabitants are the product of a wondrous cosmic randomness, a toss of the dice. We exist because a chance collection of molecules and organic matter coalesced into life, billions of years ago, and eventually evolved into sequoia and elk and herons and humans.

In my imagination, the notion that everyone I love, everyone I admire, and every beautiful thing I’ve ever seen is a cosmic accident is far more wondrous and awe-inspiring than the concept that it was all carefully designed. Understanding how hydrogen and other gases ignite into baby stars, how amino acids form into proteins, and how simple mechanisms for detecting light evolve over millennia into the human eye are far more satisfying to me than reading “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.”

Knowing this also teaches me that the universe didn’t come into being for the sake of humanity, as some religions teach. We’re merely a happy accident. This world, this galaxy–they are not our playthings. Understanding this, I hope, inspires humility and a desire to walk lightly.

I owe all this to Carl Sagan and Cosmos. Virtually all I know about human origins and the births of stars I can trace back to the wonder and fascination with learning that Dr. Sagan inspired. To call Sagan a hero would diminish the regard in which I hold him. And yet, please don’t misunderstand. Sagan opened a door and lit a path. I don’t believe for a moment he paved that path. What I owe to Dr. Sagan is the debt of inquiry, the desire to study Richard Dawkins and his explanations of Darwin’s theories, Timothy Ferris and his apt explanations of cosmology, Richard Rhodes and his accounts of the harnessing of atomic power, and Eileen Welsome and the dangers of scientific abuse.

To me, Cosmos is a lamp, a teacher, and a guidebook, and Sagan a mentor. His contributions to science education are, I believe, immeasurable. Perhaps now you understand why, when I watched the first episode again Sunday evening and recalled the many ways it has inspired me, I actually wept.