Ah, so this is what a teacher's day off feels like! Pretty nice indeed! Well, as you've guessed the David School is closed today, the 12th of December, due to what the local news crews are calling "extreme weather". Heck, the public schools canceled yesterday when the first snowflakes began to fall. Yet there was little to show for it this morning as little of that snow accumulated. It turns out that the concern was focused on the freezing rain as a few years prior a school bus en' route over ice covered roads slipped over the side of a mountain sending it's valuable passengers to an unthinkably early demise. Since then schools on this side of the state have been hyper conservative in canceling classes.
Although we were very fortunate to avoid such a catastrophic event this year, we have had our share of accidents. In early October a car containing several of our seniors collided with a Floyd County school bus on their way to the school. Although no one was seriously injured, it proved to be a taste of things to come. Living on a road frequented at all hours by coal trucks weighing in at over 51 tons, Newton's law of inertia, coupled with the fact that drivers are paid by the load have proven to be a nasty mix as numerous trucks have flipped over bends in the road famous enough to be given names such as Dead Man's Corner. Only about a week ago I was rounding this same turn after a late afternoon house grocery run to see the hazard lights of two vehicles flashing. As I approached, I saw a large pickup truck flipped on it's side in a deep ditch between the road and mountain side. It was a fortunate situation as the other side of the road was a 40-50 foot drop. Ironically two of the trucks passengers were my students at the David School and there mother had been driving. After assessing the requisite bumps and bruises inflicted by the wreck, I provided a ride home after the tow truck was called. It was a lucky break for my students as I hear about far worse accidents on the local radio station each morning. Only last Tuesday night I was returning home from the college town of Pikeville, about a 40 min drive, to encounter a traffic jam on Hwy 23. As the highway was my only way back home through the mountains I found myself at the mercy of those in front of me. I only later found out that what I experienced as an annoying three hour delay was caused by a three car pileup that resulted in the death of two men in their 40s and a 7 year old boy. Four others were injured in the crash which was caused by an SUV that crossed to median hitting an oncoming truck. The other car was damaged by debris. And finally in the week leading up to Thanksgiving two of my close friends from CAP were hit by a drunk driver as they returned from work. The accident totalled both pickup trucks, but both girls were miraculously saved from serious injury. Hearing about the incident on Thanksgiving definitely gave me much to be thankful for!!!
Until I write again, thank you for keeping up with me on my Kentucky adventure and God Bless all of you this Christmas season!!!
Mike
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