Date: Fri 04-Oct-1996

Publication: Bee

Author: KAAREN

Quick Words:

commentary-Valenta-dog-hit

Full Text:

Commentary: Trying To Believe In The Basic Goodness Of People

B Y K AAREN V ALENTA

At least death was instantaneous.

Out on a morning run, the golden retriever emerged from the roadside foliage

and started across Route 34. The car didn't stop, didn't even slow down.

Sue Shpunt stood staring, aghast, at the lifeless body of the dog lying now in

the middle of the road between the two lanes of traffic.

"The driver didn't stop. Isn't there a law that you have to at least stop and

do something?" she asked me, her voice shaking.

Sue would stop. She always stops to help anything or anyone in distress. She

had just stopped, in fact, to help me. On my way to work at 7:30 am, I had

traveled as far as the corner of Bradley Lane and Route 34 when my car stalled

and refused to start.

Sue, a friend who lives several streets away, also was on her way to work. She

stopped behind my car and got out to ask if I needed help, even before she

knew that it was me. She pushed my big old Buick as far off the road as she

could but the car was at the bottom of a dip in the road, and neither Sue nor

I had the strength to push it either way uphill, all the way off the pavement.

"I have the wrong shoes on," Sue said, puffing, as she shoved all the weight

from her slight 5'2" frame against the front the car, a monsterous relic built

in the early 80s, while her high heels refused to grip the pavement.

I took the car that morning only because my husband was using my van to make a

long-delayed trip to the dump with several weeks accumulation of trash.

"I'll take the Buick - it's no problem," I assured him, knowing even as I said

it that the blue bomber has a history of breaking down when I drive it. If

mechanical devices had a soul, this one would have long-since been owned by

the devil.

My husband left, intent on beating the morning rush hour. I followed, 20

minutes later, my thoughts less on the car than on the day ahead. But when the

Buick stalled as I waited for a break in traffic to pull onto Route 34, I knew

immediately that it wasn't going to be a good morning.

It had started as a beautiful morning, clear and sunny, after several days of

rain. Perhaps the golden retriever was delighted with the weather, too.

I didn't actually see the dog get hit. Sue had loaned me her car so I could

drive back to my house and call for a tow truck. She stayed by my car,

directing traffic around it, and hoping someone (three guys in a pickup truck

would be nice, she mused) would stop to help. She saw the dog die.

Inexplicably, a young man with shoulder-length hair appeared moments later and

began taking photographs of the dog's body, which was stretched along the

yellow line in the center of the road. Cars and trucks whizzed by on both

sides. The young man walked away.

A few minutes later, a truck stopped. Its driver got out and pulled the dog's

body to the side of the road where it looked, to John Koschel, who arrived

with the tow truck minutes later, like the carcass of a young deer.

"It's a bad starter," John said after poking his head under the hood of the

Buick for a few minutes, then banging underneath the car with a large hammer.

The car started immediately.

"Drive into town, and I'll follow you," John said. "Just don't let it stall

again."

At that moment a school bus turned off Route 34 onto Bradley and stopped,

unable to get past the tow truck. John, Sue, and I quickly maneuvered our

vehicles out of the way, the bus passed, and we started toward town.

Sue already knew what she would do when she arrived at the town clerk's

office, where she works. "I'll call George Mattegat (the dog warden), or the

police if I can't reach George," she said.

When I finally reached The Bee office and told other staff members about the

dog that was killed, and the driver who didn't stop, Steve Bigham was

incredulous.

"It's easy to go through life and pretend that it never happened - if that's

the way you want to live your life," he said.

It goes without saying that dog owners shouldn't let their animals run loose.

State law prohibits owners from allowing their dogs to roam at large on the

land or on any public highway. They also have an obligation to protect their

pets from the obvious risk of harm that exists even in the country when you

live near a busy highway. This dog probably was someone's much loved pet. A

family will be grieving tonight.

It also is the law that any driver who hits and injures or kills a dog is

required to stop at once and render such assistance as may be possible and

report the incident to the dog's owner or the police. As to this driver who

didn't want to get involved, not even to confirm that the dog was indeed dead,

well, let's just hope that such drivers are outnumbered by the Sue Shpunts of

the world.

Sue sometimes tells the story of the time her car broke down late on a bitter

cold night as she drove home on one of the deserted back roads between her

house and the Sand Hill Plaza. It was pitch black outside and she wasn't

dressed for the near-blizzard conditions. She didn't even have boots. But as

she sat in the dark, the cold now seeping into her clothes, she began to

wonder if she could freeze to death before anyone found her.

After what seemed like hours, a pickup truck came along and the driver

stopped. He offered to bring her home. Sue thought a moment, recalling all the

times she had warned her children never to accept rides with strangers.

"He had a pony tail but I still got into his truck," Sue said. "There are

times when you have to believe in the basic goodness of people."