SEATBELTS v. THE JESTERS

June 9, 2005

      Everybody has one. You know - the story about the guy who wasn't wearing a seatbelt, and it saved his life. I have one.

      My brother used to be in a calypso group. Now, you have to be over 52 years old to remember what a "calypso group" is. Back in the 50's and early 60's, FOLK music was very big. And there was a type of folk music known as calypso. Several groups were very big. The biggest of these was the Kingston Trio. They wore calypso pants and calypso shirts - button down calypso shirts - usually madras fabric with stripes - not plaids. You may have heard one of their songs - Tom Dooley, MTA, Zombie Jamboree, Coplas.

      Anyway, my brother used to be in a calypso group. It was called The Jesters. They had been cobbled together at Dreher High School, in Columbia, by Maryanne Holland (who now teaches at North Greenville University.) She had put the group together to make a record for the centennial of the firing on Fort Sumter which started the Late Unpleasantness. The Jesters became an instant minor hit.

      They actually performed for real money at many venues. I won't embarrass the other two people in the group by naming them, but I can tell you that they really did sound good together. Of course, my brother has always had a professional Tenor voice. My sister had a beautiful, professional soprano voice. I got the frog bass.

      So, bro is coming back from somewhere that involved using I-26 (the great vision of either Walt Disney or Dwight D. Eisenhower, depending on who's telling the story). He was traveling in his 1949 black Chevy which he had bought from my mother's sister, Aunt Dorothy. It was in mint condition.

      Enter the drunk moron.

      This drunk so-and-so careens down the off-ramp in his green pickup truck, down the wrong side of the road, heading straight for the Jesters in Aunt Dorothy's black '49 Chevy.

      My brother, who was driving, swerves the car to avoid the jackass, but the driver is drunk and swerves back into the Jester's path.

      Slam. Crunch. Chug.

      The slam was the two vehicles doing a pirouette. Two of the Jesters get thrown from the car. The bass player is thrown on to the grass. Brother gets thrown on the pavement - scraping chin and bone in a hideous slide. The third Jester is in the back and is protected by the massive front seat.

The crunch is a large, metal pole which Mr. Drunk Jackass is carrying in the back of his green pickup. It spears the front window, burying itself 4" into the massive front seat, on the driver's side.

      The chug was the sound that the Jesters heard as Mr. D. J., in his green pickup, chugged away - leaving them on the highway. We still don't know who this guy was.

      Fortunately, a cowboy-hatted highway patrolman came along and got everybody to the hospital in Columbia.

      I remember seeing My brother, lying on his hospital bed, fighting for his life and asking my dad why he hadn't worn a seatbelt. I remember dad telling me how lucky he was because he would have been dead if he had been wearing one.

      This is the first time I have ever written about this, but with the passage of the silly seatbelt law, I just wanted to underscore the fact that there will be a certain percentage of people who will be killed because they wore their seatbelts.

      And, besides, why SHOULD we have a seatbelt law? We are not Georgia. We are not the welfare state of North Carolina.

      It MAY be that statistics show that more people are saved from death by wearing a seatbelt. But I can guarantee you that NO-ONE has compiled evidence on how horribly dangerous seatbelts can be - especially in combination with airbags. So we will never know.

      But there are some legislators who will be visited in the night by the ghosts of those who will be killed by those untoward restraints. Personally, I hope they are scared to within an inch of their worthless, busy-bodied lives.