1768. Look out

It was one of those tragedies that could have been avoided. It was both indulgent and unnecessary. Twenty-four university geology students on a field trip were crowded onto a lookout in the mountains. The lookout collapsed and the students fell thousands of feet down the cliff to inevitable death.

Let us compare details of two university students to better understand the sadness of what happened.

Donna Bella was enrolled at university to get a degree in Geology. She was bright, intelligent, and quite frankly full of herself. Her father (I know him from work) is a civil engineer. He said to his spoiled daughter, “You can do better than that”, and through various connections secured Donna Bella a grant to study nuclear physics at a rather prestigious institution. That is why Donna Bella wasn’t one of the geology students standing on the mountain lookout that collapsed.

On the other hand, Minnie-Martha had enrolled in geology and was standing on the mountain lookout when it collapsed. Obviously her father didn’t have the money to buy his daughter a degree from a prestigious university. Actually, she was my daughter. I cannot bear to say more. Enough said.

Some people think they can get away with things scot free. Not so, which is why I applaud the unidentified driver of the hit and run yesterday that ran over that selfish know-all called Donna Bella. She was crossing the road and the car didn’t just clip her; it went slap-bang wham full on. It was very satisfying.