This article is part of a series of columns called Pete’s Dog Day Afternoons. View more of his columns here.
If it bleeds, it leads. That is an old newspaper adage that has proven true throughout history. It is a fact that stories about death, blood and guts are read more than stories intended to enlighten, report history, entertain or educate.
Never is that more evident than here on TheBAYNET.com. Of course, being an internet news portal allows us a few peccadillo’s from which traditional print media outlets tend shy away. Stories with pictures of scantily clad beautiful women are very popular here.
Then there is the mainstay piece – the granddaddy of them all – car crashes. Thanks to the wonderful tender care that Southern Maryland drivers take with their vehicles, we never seem to run out of material.
I did a story on July 29 about the Superintendant’s Young Safe Drivers Initiative; pretty interesting. Apparently, the young drivers of Southern Maryland, tearing around our highways are leading the state in bent and mangled sheet metal. Unfortunately, they are also leading the state in mangled bodies and traffic fatalities.
Back in the stone age, when I was a teen here in Southern Maryland and first started driving my brand spanking new, 1956 Buick Roadmaster – well it was new to me anyway. My grandfather gave the car to me when I was 14 and it sat there in the yard taunting me for two years until I got my driver’s license.
I remember coming home every day after school and going in the house, retrieving the keys and going out into the driveway and starting my car. It was great. I must have burned up two tanks of gas going nowhere, revving the engine, playing with the radio – I even used to stay in the car at night, listen to the radio – AM back in those days, no FM stations anywhere to be found – and do my homework until it was too dark to continue. Now that was heaven, and hell, considering I had eons to go before my 16th birthday.
Then I actually passed the driver’s test and got my license. Well, I took that beautiful car and drove, and drove, and drove, and drove. I don’t think I stopped driving for two days after receiving my license. It was fantastic!
I really was in heaven. That is until I wrapped its nose around a tree one day. Good thing TheBAYNET.com wasn’t around then, I might have made one of our most read stories.
After a few hundred thousand miles and many cars later, I finally figured out that cars are not much more than a utility to get us from one place to another, which might explain why I now drive a 16 year-old jeep and stick pretty much to the speed limit. It’s just a car, it runs, gets reasonable mileage, and it’s paid for. Now that’s my idea of heaven!