Never a Dull Moment

I was in an auto accident on Sunday night of this week.

My car, a wonderful 2006 Toyota Prius that I had taken to calling "Hirohito," is totaled.

My brother was in the passenger's front seat of Hirohito -- I was driving. We were hit on my side of the car (it was the fault of the idiot who ran the red light driving south on Enfield Street -- thanks idiot!), and any chance I might have had to avoid Idiot was eliminated by the huge pile of snow on that corner, cutting off my chance to see anything other than the fact that I had the blooming green light.

Other motorists who saw it stopped to be sure we were okay and stayed to tell the police what they had seen. Which was of course good for me, and good of them. Thanks guys!

If Idiot had been about a half-second slower I could be dead now. He crashed into my car right at the front left side tire, just in front of the driver's-side door and me.

Then idiot pulled to the side of the road, wandered back toward me, and said, "Hey, I had the green light!" On what friggin' planet, Idiot???

Anyway, I'm fine. My brother needed a little medical attention to his knee, but under the circumstances, he's fine too. And what's a car I had owned and made payments on for four and a half years? Only a material thing. Not like I should be resentful or anything.

Such is life on the third rock from the sun.

Thanksgiving Day

With all due respect to the Pilgrims, to the traditional sentiments of harvest time, and to expressions of gratitude, both cosmic and local, Thanksgiving Day is among its other functions the day that traditional rivalries play out on football fields -- the fields of both high schools and colleges.

I can't speak to today's games because I'm not writing this today. I wrote this last weekend for posting today. (Ain't I clever? Ain't technology wonderful?) But I will take this opportunity to express my regret at the end of the old Fermi-Enfield rivalry. This year's game between the two public schools of the town of Enfield, Conecticut will be the last in a string that goes back to 1972. Enfield will join the Pequot Conference as a full member next season, and the rules of that conference prohibit games outside said conference.

While I'm in this mood of nostalgia and regret, allow me to note (not that you have any choice) that there were several traditional Thanksgiving Day rivalries of recent decades in northcentral Connecticut that are no more, mostly because one of the other of the high schools involved has disappeared. New Britain would play Pulaski; Penney would play East Hartford; Middletown would play Woodrow Wilson High. But one of the schools in each of those pairings is no more.

Ah, but now I need to cheer myself up. What about that UConn/Notre Dame double-overtime game this past weekend? Was that amazing? Congrats to coach Edsall. This was the best possible recruiting poster for him as he builds a program fit for the national stage, doing what Calhoun managed to do for the same school's basketball program years ago.

Yeaaaah Huskies.