9/16/01

It started out as a fine Sunday morning. My wife and C had gone with her parents to Jackson for the weekend, and I'd puttered around the house all weekend. I woke up that morning to beautiful, warm weather and a day to myself.

My parents have called me on Sunday morning since I left for college, so it wasn't anything unusual when the phone rang. When I answered, my dad said he had bad news, that my brother had died. He didn't know many particulars, only that several members of the UW cross country team had died in a wreck.

I called my boss at the time, who surprised me by being very understanding, and told me to take as much time off as I needed. I piled some clothes and the dogs in the car and headed for my parents' house, two hours away. I tried to call my father-in-law's cell phone repeatedly, but there was no answer. I would learn later that he had turned it off all weekend because he didn't want to be bothered. A small, petty part of me resents that action to this day.

By the time I got to my parents' house, most of the family had assembled. My sister was trying to fly in from Seattle, but travel was very difficult because of the terrorist attacks earlier in the week. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and assorted family friends and random sympathizers streamed through the house. For some inexplicable reason, everyone brought a ham.

A few details had come to light about the accident. There were eight killed, all told. Eight. All were track and/or cross country athletes. They had gone to Fort Collins on Saturday because all UW athletic events that weekend were cancelled due to the events of September eleventh. The driver of the other vehicle was also a UW athlete. The accident occurred around 2AM, some 18 miles to the south of Laramie as my brother and his friends were on their way back home.

I drove with my uncle to my in-laws house (both sets of our parents live in the same town and put a note on my wife's car asking her to call me as soon as she got back. When she did call late that afternoon, I had to tell her over the phone what had happened. See, this is one of the least pleasant things that she and I have in common. She lost her older sister in a wreck over twenty years ago.

Later, we would learn that the other driver had been drinking. He'd been drinking for quite a while, then had decided to drive to Fort Collins to visit his girlfriend. When he was taken to the hospital after the wreck, he had refused a blood alcohol test.

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Another shameless music plug:

Just before I started to write this entry, I found some new music. One of my favorite semi-local bands broke up last year, but most of the members have formed a new band called Beneath Your Ego. They have put some new songs up on their Myspace site.

I highly recommend the songs Breathe and Lines. But - Come Next Fall is creeping me out in a very good way. Give them a listen. And I too hope you still see your shadows come next fall.