Early One Thursday Morn

 

I posted the following early this morning before the sun came up on the Goshen, NY Facebook page:

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Someone attempted to murder me last night. And how was your evening???

 

At about a quarter to one I decided to drive up Route 17M to the Middletown Quick Check to get some take out. On my way back, I noticed that my vehicle was vibrating. Within seconds, almost opposite the Mid Hudson Psychiatric Center, it lurched violently downward. To my left I could see the driver’s rear wheel rolling rapidly into the darkness. As my cell phone was charging at the time, I did not have it with me to call for assistance. In recent years walking has become very difficult for me and I need to use a cane. I had neglected to take it with me and was forced to stumble home a mile and a half in the dark, falling down once.

 

I tend to drive very slow late at night. I was doing about thirty MPH. Had I been doing the suggested limit - or had another vehicle been approaching in the opposite lane when the wheel rolled toward it - there could have been one-or-more fatalities.

 

The jeep is still parked there while I wait for a towing company to open for business.

 

I live in an isolated area of the town of Goshen. I don’t reside in a residential district and have no neighbors to speak of. This was not an isolated prank. I am the author of a decidedly left-of-center political and current events blog that has gotten a little bit of national attention in the last two years. I have no other choice than to believe that this potentially lethal “prank” was in reaction to my political beliefs, which are - I’ll be the first to admit - controversial. I've been vandalized before, but not in a number of years. I've even received death threats but, again, not in at least eight years. That this could happen anywhere in America, given the times we live in, is to be expected I suppose. The fact that it could happen here in "Slow motion Goshen" is too sad for contemplation.

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For whatever silly reason, the administrator of the Goshen FB page deleted the post within less than an hour. Although most of the responses were sympathetic, a few of them were unbelievably hostile. One claimed that I made the whole thing up to get publicity for this blog. Another implied that I was mentally imbalanced and was blaming Donald Trump. I'm almost certain that six lug nuts do not simultaneously remove themselves from a tire.

 

We sure do live in interesting times.

 

Tom Degan

Goshen, NY

AFTERTHOUGHT, 12:03 PM:

Are you ready for the punch line?

A half hour ago I took a cab to the site of the incident in order to leave the keys on the front seat for the towing company. When I looked inside, I noticed that my second cane was leaning against the passenger seat. It had been so dark that I hadn't noticed it. That really would have come in handy during the long walk back to my house. Do I feel silly!