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It was on the way home from choir practice last night. Susan, the kids, and I were all in the van, heading north on 73. Right at Ginny Doyle’s house, I noticed a car pulled over quite a ways on the shoulder. He was heading south, his headlights coming towards me. I thought perhaps he had broken down. All of a sudden, I saw a deer in the street, down on his front legs–almost like he was praying. I headed towards the right ditch. He took that exact moment to try and get out of the road. He sorta hurled himself forward, and ran smack into our front driver’s side fender. I looked in the rearview side mirror, and saw him act all crazy, like he was trying to get his footing. He then ran into the woods. I got out and checked for the deer. He was not to be found. I didn’t see any blood in the street, and there was nothing on the van. In fact, you couldn’t see any evidence on the van at all. Not even scrape marks in the dirt or anything. I’m hoping he survived. I think probably the poor guy had been hit twice: once by the first car coming the other way (and that would explain why he had moved over, and why the deer wasn’t on four legs to start this encounter), and a second time by us. Or rather, he his us after the other guy hit him. That other person, though, decided not to stop. They apparently didn’t stop for the deer, and they didn’t stop for us, either.

Oh, and one other thing. Nat said to Susan after the accident “Mom, you’re the best screamer!” I asked Susan if she screamed. She said she screamed so hard her throat hurt. I don’t remember that at all, and I was sitting right next to her!

I got the door to the garage open. The battery is installed, freshly charged. The stale gas was siphoned out, and fresh gas put in the tank. A few jumps on the kick start to get the oil circulated. A touch of the electric start. She fired right up! She’s warming up in the garage now! Will I get my first scoot of the season today?

Luigi Paulino Alfredo Francesco Antonio Balassoni, aka Louie Bellson, died on Saturday. Louie was the pioneer of the double bass drum set–something seen frequently among hard rock and heavy metal drummers today. Interestingly, other than Louie and Ed Shaugnessy, I can’t think of any other Jazzers who used two basses. Anyway, here’s to you, Louie.

Props going out to my friend Harvey. He called me the other day and asked if I’d heard of the band Breakestra. He described them as “young kids playing James Brown grooves.” I said I hadn’t, and he told me I should check them out. He said they were listening to them on Pandora. I had heard of Pandora, but I never checked it out. It’s great! Free music, and so many artists I haven’t heard! So, while listening to the Breakestra station, I found this band called Poets of Rhythm–a German funk band! Can you believe it? So I downloaded some Breakestra and Poets of Rhythm from iTunes. See–free Internet radio results in music sales! Oh, and Pandora also has an app for the iPod Touch. So I downloaded that, too. So now, I can plug my Touch into my iPod alarm clock, run the Pandora app, and listen to Internet radio as I drift off to sleep. Cool! Thanks a lot, Harv!