The story goes that legendary Lakota Sioux war chief Crazy Horse would ride into battle encouraging his warriors with the war cry “Hoka hey” which, in the context of battle, translates into the cheerful slogan: “This is a good day to die.”
As far as martial mottos go this one is pretty good, and it is probably not a bad one to have in mind if you are about to go out and lay your life on the line for all you hold dear.
Casting this rather pessimistic proverb in a more positive light, it might be a good way to remind us that any one day could be our last. Life is short, as the late Lincoln Academy Head of School Howard Ryder wrote in one of his last messages to his staff: live every day to its fullest.
The final bow is on our mind this week because last Thursday proved to be the day for 66-year-old Harold Benner of Waldoboro. In most respects, it was a very good day: brilliant sunshine, beautiful blue skies, perfect temperatures; could have been a bit warmer maybe, but still nice enough; the black flies all gone and just enough breeze to keep the mosquitoes away.
If you had been standing in the parking lot of the Waldoboro municipal building last Thursday, waiting for the LifeFlight helicopter to come and whisk away a critically injured Steven Kaler, you would have been hard pressed not noticing how beautiful a day it was.
Less than an hour earlier on that same lovely afternoon, even as Lincoln Academy graduates were proudly marching in to pick up their diplomas in Newcastle; beginning a new chapter in their young lives filled with hope and promise, Harold Benner was already dead and Steven Kaler was crawling away from his burning pick up truck. Assuming he survives, his life will never be the same.
Harold Benner was within a half mile of his house when he died. By all accounts he was on his way home; minding his own business, driving his own car, in his own lane; as safe as he could reasonably be when an out of control truck crossed the centerline and killed him.
If we can take anything positive from this sad news, we could start with the reminder that one of the most common things in our modern American life, operating a motor vehicle, is also one of the most dangerous things most people will ever do and most of us get into a car every single day.
It’s a death defying act really: all aspects of humanity piloting a ton or more of metal down relatively narrow asphalt corridors at various speeds in various conditions, all the while intentionally aiming to miss oncoming tons of metal by at least a couple feet. The variables defy definition.
It was Harold Benner’s time last week, but truly, that could have been the time for any one of us.
After LifeFlight took off with Steven Kaler on board last Thursday, our man on the scene drove over to Rt. 235 in Waldoboro. He was nearing the site of the accident when a sporty black sedan blew by him on a double yellow and disappeared in the distance ahead.
The irony is inescapable… and humbling.
