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Life seems grotesquely fragile. Situational awareness can only take you so far. Be alert.
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Graffiti wisdom: “Be alert. The world needs more lerts”.
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Yes, indeed. Pay attention. Bad things happen. And they happen fast. But you’d better hope that luck is on your side, too.
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In New York City in May of this year, a 56-year-old woman parked near the corner of 5th Avenue and 52nd Street. She locked her car, took one step, and plunged 10 feet to her death down an open manhole cover. According to utility company Con Edison, a multi-axle truck may have jostled the manhole cover open. Social media came alive, yaddering about “situational awareness”.
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Jill Bennett gets this. She has new respect for just how everything hangs in the balance. She has hosted the Jill Bennett Show on News Talk CKNW Radio from noon till 3 p.m. Bennett brings boundless curiosity and humour to her job of keeping the public in the know. She’s hardly a person to be accused of being unaware — situationally, socially, or comedically.
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Sunrise
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On June 18, Bennett was heading home from work. It was a particularly glorious day in Vancouver. On top of the usual downtown throng, the city was buzzing with FIFA World Cup activities. The five blocks of Granville dedicated for FIFA pedestrian-only activities would mean Bennett’s short commute to her downtown home would take more time than usual.
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In order to side-step the crowds, she elected to take a different route home. Bennett set off on her electric scooter thinking she would take Hornby Street, two blocks away from the fan zone. She crossed the pedestrian plaza between the Vancouver Art Gallery and the Law Courts and was heading south at the intersection of Hornby at Robson.
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It was an exceptional day and still only mid-afternoon. The plaza was jostling with spill-over crowds from the fan zone, many of them in red and white gear to show their support for Team Canada. Bennett paused for a moment. You know, traffic lights, the food trucks, happy pedestrians … just taking in the scene. She moved forward, crossing an exit ramp from the underground parking lot toward the bike path.
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And this is where Bennett says it all gets weird. Things speed up. Things slow down. Things are upside down. A car — a Tesla — moving at a speed that a pedestrian can’t fathom, explodes from the underground parking lot, shattering the convivial din of the plaza. Its trajectory is suddenly blocked by a tree. There is the odd sound of metal meeting wood. The car had launched itself out of the underground parking lot directly into a tree.
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Bennett wonders, “Did that just happen?”
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“Wasn’t I just standing right … there?”
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A man is heading north on the same strip of pavement as she is. They look directly into each other’s ashen faces, recognizing that they both almost joined the choir invisible together.
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Immediately following the car’s collision with the tree, several members of the Vancouver Police Department arrive. Guns are drawn. Bennett thinks she saw a taser. The man is face down on the ground. Bennett thinks she is about to faint. She finds a bench and sits herself down.
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Shortly, a police officer comes to speak with her and offers her a victim services card. She gathers herself up and carries on home.
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Even now, more than a month later, Bennett is shaken by this event. Life seems grotesquely fragile. Situational awareness can only take you so far. Be alert. The world needs more lerts.
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Jane Macdougall is a freelance writer and former National Post columnist who lives in Vancouver. She writes The Bookless Club every Saturday online and in The Vancouver Sun. For more of what Jane’s up to, check out her website, janemacdougall.com
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This week’s question for readers:
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Question: Has a split second ever made a difference in your life?
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Send your answers by email text, not an attachment, in 100 words or less, along with your full name to Jane at thebooklessclub@gmail.com. We will print some next week in this space.
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Previous question for readers:
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Question: Any game traditions in your family?
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Our family’s games of choice include Scrabble, Mexican Trains, Flip 7 and Pictionary. We play the Pictionary game using the app on Netflix. It’s where you draw the picture using your cellphone and it’s shown on your TV screen. Lots of trash talk and laughter follows each drawing.
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Fred Leibel
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• Our family of six have joyfully played games throughout our lives, a tradition started by both my husband’s and my own family as we were growing up. I was “tested” by my future in-laws by a game entitled Kings In The Corner, at the time of our first meeting. According to my husband, they wanted to know how smart I was. (I won the game, by the way)
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Today, my husband (of 55 years) and I frequently play two Scrabble games a day. With our adult children we regularly play Quiddler. Our grandsons have been introduced to Shut The Box, which involves dice and a wooden box with movable lettered tiles. This game encourages the use of math and strategy.
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Claudia Smith
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• My memories of Scrabble date back to summers at a cottage north of Toronto. In the 1950s all the aunts, uncles and cousins would converge for several weeks. The old cottage had no electricity, but it had a telephone and one cold-water tap in the kitchen sink. Some Scrabble games were played on the dock, and occasionally a few wood tiles would fall down between the cracks. Uncle Alec was usually the one to swim underneath and rescue the floating tiles.
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Some years ago, a friend introduced me to Quiddler. There is strategy needed as well as being able to form words. Like cribbage, there is the luck of the deal.
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Angus McIntyre
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• When I was still married we used to play a great board game called Rummoli. So many great memories of those evenings with friends and family. Food, drinks, and friendship. I wished those nights would never end. Sadly, those days are long gone, but the memories remain vivid in my soul.
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John Smith
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• I was born into a family that takes the card game of Spoons very seriously. From a young age, I looked forward to our fast-paced matches — a game that, on occasion, has ended with a little bloodshed thanks to fiercely competitive players armed with suspiciously long fingernails. It’s all in good fun … mostly.
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Today, three generations gather around the table to play at family get-togethers. It’s one of those traditions that brings everyone together, proving that nothing says “family bonding” quite like a friendly game where your fingers are never completely safe.
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Heather McEachern
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• Friday night is game night. Our neighbours of 52 years and ourselves have game night every Friday at 7:30 p.m. As we are all in our 80s now, it helps to keep our neurons working. When it is not game night, I’m doing puzzles like Sudoku, crosswords, or KenKen. My wife and I play cribbage, Mexican Trains and Chickenfoot. I haven’t found a good chess player for years, but maybe sometime I will get back to that.
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Robert Dares
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• There is nothing more fun than time spent in competition with family, friends … or even yourself. I have memories of Monopoly, snakes and ladders, Jenga, Operation, Trivial Pursuit, Sorry, checkers, and cribbage on the cabin deck between a teen girl and her great-uncle.
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But the king of games is Mexican Trains. Learning this amazing game from dearest friends, we taught our adult children, our grandchildren, and any friends who would listen. Now those same grands have introduced us to their own brand of glee, the cheeky “Cards Against Humanity-Family Edition”.
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Jo-Ann Zador
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• I grew up with games. My family loves them. My husband does not love games or cards. Nor sports for that matter. However, my daughter and I somehow taught him how to play Sorry. I grew up playing with my sister and my dad, right after dad fed the cows. A cozy, winter, cut-throat game.
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My Norwegian friend played it with us exactly once. He feared that a fight might break out. But no chance. The trick of playing a game is throwing yourself ruthlessly, but also joyfully, into the game. Lose as happily as you win. The happy moments together last a lifetime.
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Sheila Humphrey
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• While vacationing in Mexico two years ago, we saw a couple playing Kings Cribbage — a board game for two to four players that uses Scrabble tiles to play crib (the tiles represent two decks of cards instead of letters). They taught us how to play and the rules are quite simple. When we returned home to Vancouver, I purchased a game and we take it on all our trips now (more fun than crib).
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Carrie Beavington
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• Monopoly, Risk, Clue, crokinole, and charades were the staples. Monopoly with my two older brothers — the oldest of whom, when confronted with bankruptcy, would simply curse and then up-end the board so nobody could win. Sometimes day-long games of Risk. Early efforts included playing once or twice with my second-oldest brother and his friend Scott Abbot (co-inventor of Trivial Pursuit). Clue taught me logical thinking. Crokinole I learned from my cousins at the annual family Christmas gathering, where we also played charades — such fun watching grown-ups act the fool, early lessons in how to stay young-at-heart. I’m lucky to have friends here who also like to play, and recently attended a games night featuring giant Jenga (team sport), giant Battleship (team sport with shots), Pictionary, and charades. The Houghton/Putnam game spirit lives on.
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Gary Houghton
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