badunnin
06-03-2007, 06:20 AM
10 years ago today, I lost 3 friends, Michael Jamieson, Andy Stindt and Ashley Easterbrook, to a drunk driver - my cats, Michael and Andrew (and previously Ashley as well) were named for these wonderful human beings. I wanted to post this article, written by Mitch Albom, as a reminder to not drink and drive, and in their memory today. And fwiw, Michael is curled up under my knees now, sleeping peacefully, and Andrew is next to me. We're listening to the rain today.
A Deadly Decision
By Mitch Albom, “Dreams Deferred 1997”
Last in a series on the heartbreaks and hopes of unsung Detroit area athletes.
A thin drizzle fell that night, giving the streets an oily sheen under the lights. It was just
past midnight, Monday turning to Tuesday, and a teenager named Tim Doil was driving
through Troy with two friends, coming home from a high school graduation party. It was
warm. Early June. They had Puff Daddy on the radio, singing “I’ll Be Missing You.”
They were heading east.
In the intersection up ahead, Crooks and Long Lake, Doil noticed a black Grand Prix
coming west. And from the corner of his eye, to his right, he saw a white Trans Am
moving fast from the south. Doil instinctively stepped on his brakes, even though the
Trans Am had a red light. Something funny about the speed.
One second later, with the disbelief of seeing someone fall out a window, Doil watched
the Trans Am run that red light and plow broadside into the Grand Prix, splitting it in
two. There was a loud boom, smashing glass, sparks and smoke and pieces of metal
flying.
And then, there was silence.
“God, did you see that!” Doil yelled to his pals. He pulled his blue Oldsmobile to a safe
spot, shut off the engine and jumped out. Near the median curb he saw the first body, a
young man with blond hair. He was face down in a bloody mess. Doil had never seen a
dead person before, but he was pretty sure he was looking at one now.
Just a few feet away, there was another young man, dark-haired. He was facing up,
barely breathing. Doil kneeled down and squeezed his hand.
“Hey…” Doil said.
The young man gurgled. There was blood everywhere. Doil saw the eyes close and felt
the life slip out of the young man’s fingers. He let them go.
From the middle of the street, he heard the wounded howl of a woman in paid. He ran to
join his buddies, who were already around her. It was so eerie, all these bodies in the
rain.
“What’s your name?” he asked the woman.
“Lori,” she moaned. She had been driving the white Trans Am, but had been hurled out
by the impact. She was bruised and bleeding, in her dying hour. But out of shock, she
tried to lift herself, as if to get up to go.
“Stay down,” Doil and his friends kept saying. “You hear the sirens?…Help is
coming…Everything will be all right.”
By now, a few other motorists had stopped, and someone shined a flashlight in the
woman’s eyes, which kept rolling back in their sockets. Then Doil heard a voice yell,
“There’s another one, over here!”
He ran to an area by some small trees, where the back half of the Grand Prix had landed.
He swallowed hard. What he saw was the worst of all. It was a girl, or it been a girl, in a
plaid shirt and jeans. She lay against the wreckage in a pool of bloody water. A few
minutes earlier, Doil guessed, she had been the same as him, alive, laughing, maybe 17 or
18, on her way home for the night.
And now the look.
Drink, drink, drive, die. This is the story of a killer, only the killer is a decision to get
behind a wheel. This time it killed in Troy, a place where children still shine, where they
leave their parents dazzled by their achievements. Three of the brightest lights you could
ever imagine were in that black Grand Prix, that night, sober and happy. And now their
fathers cry in the middle of the afternoon, and their mothers wait longingly for them to
somehow burst through the door, still young, still laughing.
Drink, drink, drive, die. This is the story of everyone that killer decision destroyed. And
what really kills you is that it didn’t have to happen.
The baseball player
“Hey, Mom, we got some garlic bread…”
Say good-bye to the first innocent victim. Nineteen-year-old Michael Jamieson, with the
rangy frame of a baseball pitcher, his blond hair still parted in the middle, the way he
wore it in high school, flashed his gleaming smile and held out a fresh-baked loaf.
He had been home a month since finishing freshman year at Western Michigan. His
mother, Penny, was glad to have him back, glad to have the commotion her youngest
child brought with him. There were always friends coming by when Michael was
around. They flopped in her living room couch the way teenagers do, watching TV,
making jokes, sometimes falling asleep and spending the night face down in the pillows.
Penny liked Michael’s friends. She liked Andy Stindt, the former high school lacrosse
star, who was here with Michael now. It was the night of June 2, 1997. The two had just
come from getting their new uniforms at Kruse and Muer, a restaurant where they were
due to start work the next day.
“I don’t know,” Michael said, studying the outfits and grinning. “I think our jeans need
to be tighter. Show off our butts, Haha.”
Michael Jamieson was mischievous and he was witty. He liked the Beatles. He liked
Mountain Dew. And he loved baseball. He kept sports sections boxed up under his bed,
with trading cards of his hero, Nolan Ryan.
When Michael was a kid, his stepfather, Randy Mapes, took him to a baseball camp run
by former Tigers star Bill Freehan. Michael wanted desperately to meet the famous man,
so Randy walked him over.
“Don’t be nervous when you talk to him, OK, Mike? he said.
“OK.”
“He’s just a guy, like you and me.”
“OK”
Then when Freehan looked up, Randy froze.
“Uh…” he mumbled. “I, uh…”
Michael never missed a beat.
“Hi, Mr. Freehan. My name is Michael. This is my father. He’s a little nervous…”
Like a lot of kids in Troy, Michael Jamieson blossomed through a bevy of school
activities. He pitched for the Troy Athens team. He played soccer. He played the viola.
He won an $8,000 scholarship to attend Western and his plan was to become a history
teacher.
For now, he was doing what most college freshmen do on summer break: working to
make some cash. He loved the idea of working with Andy. They remained tight friends,
even though they had chosen different colleges. Hey. Your high school ties are the ones
that blind, aren’t they?
And Michael and Andy had tied it together in high school. They’d done the prom thing
with their girlfriends. They’d hung out in Royal Oak coffee shops. They also took a
senior trip to Hilton Head Island, S.C., that was, for both of them, unforgettable. Each
day they would start walking down the beach, and an hour later they’d come back with
40 new friends. There’s a photo of them on that beach, all tanned skin and young muscle,
surrounded by girls, grinning like bandits.
Penny loves those photos.
“This bread is good, huh?" Her son said that night.
“Mmm,” she answered, smiling through her bites.
They stayed there a few more minutes, talking, eating, just another family moment in the
kitchen. The Michael said they were going over to Andy’s and Penny said OK.
She heard the door close behind them.
A Deadly Decision
By Mitch Albom, “Dreams Deferred 1997”
Last in a series on the heartbreaks and hopes of unsung Detroit area athletes.
A thin drizzle fell that night, giving the streets an oily sheen under the lights. It was just
past midnight, Monday turning to Tuesday, and a teenager named Tim Doil was driving
through Troy with two friends, coming home from a high school graduation party. It was
warm. Early June. They had Puff Daddy on the radio, singing “I’ll Be Missing You.”
They were heading east.
In the intersection up ahead, Crooks and Long Lake, Doil noticed a black Grand Prix
coming west. And from the corner of his eye, to his right, he saw a white Trans Am
moving fast from the south. Doil instinctively stepped on his brakes, even though the
Trans Am had a red light. Something funny about the speed.
One second later, with the disbelief of seeing someone fall out a window, Doil watched
the Trans Am run that red light and plow broadside into the Grand Prix, splitting it in
two. There was a loud boom, smashing glass, sparks and smoke and pieces of metal
flying.
And then, there was silence.
“God, did you see that!” Doil yelled to his pals. He pulled his blue Oldsmobile to a safe
spot, shut off the engine and jumped out. Near the median curb he saw the first body, a
young man with blond hair. He was face down in a bloody mess. Doil had never seen a
dead person before, but he was pretty sure he was looking at one now.
Just a few feet away, there was another young man, dark-haired. He was facing up,
barely breathing. Doil kneeled down and squeezed his hand.
“Hey…” Doil said.
The young man gurgled. There was blood everywhere. Doil saw the eyes close and felt
the life slip out of the young man’s fingers. He let them go.
From the middle of the street, he heard the wounded howl of a woman in paid. He ran to
join his buddies, who were already around her. It was so eerie, all these bodies in the
rain.
“What’s your name?” he asked the woman.
“Lori,” she moaned. She had been driving the white Trans Am, but had been hurled out
by the impact. She was bruised and bleeding, in her dying hour. But out of shock, she
tried to lift herself, as if to get up to go.
“Stay down,” Doil and his friends kept saying. “You hear the sirens?…Help is
coming…Everything will be all right.”
By now, a few other motorists had stopped, and someone shined a flashlight in the
woman’s eyes, which kept rolling back in their sockets. Then Doil heard a voice yell,
“There’s another one, over here!”
He ran to an area by some small trees, where the back half of the Grand Prix had landed.
He swallowed hard. What he saw was the worst of all. It was a girl, or it been a girl, in a
plaid shirt and jeans. She lay against the wreckage in a pool of bloody water. A few
minutes earlier, Doil guessed, she had been the same as him, alive, laughing, maybe 17 or
18, on her way home for the night.
And now the look.
Drink, drink, drive, die. This is the story of a killer, only the killer is a decision to get
behind a wheel. This time it killed in Troy, a place where children still shine, where they
leave their parents dazzled by their achievements. Three of the brightest lights you could
ever imagine were in that black Grand Prix, that night, sober and happy. And now their
fathers cry in the middle of the afternoon, and their mothers wait longingly for them to
somehow burst through the door, still young, still laughing.
Drink, drink, drive, die. This is the story of everyone that killer decision destroyed. And
what really kills you is that it didn’t have to happen.
The baseball player
“Hey, Mom, we got some garlic bread…”
Say good-bye to the first innocent victim. Nineteen-year-old Michael Jamieson, with the
rangy frame of a baseball pitcher, his blond hair still parted in the middle, the way he
wore it in high school, flashed his gleaming smile and held out a fresh-baked loaf.
He had been home a month since finishing freshman year at Western Michigan. His
mother, Penny, was glad to have him back, glad to have the commotion her youngest
child brought with him. There were always friends coming by when Michael was
around. They flopped in her living room couch the way teenagers do, watching TV,
making jokes, sometimes falling asleep and spending the night face down in the pillows.
Penny liked Michael’s friends. She liked Andy Stindt, the former high school lacrosse
star, who was here with Michael now. It was the night of June 2, 1997. The two had just
come from getting their new uniforms at Kruse and Muer, a restaurant where they were
due to start work the next day.
“I don’t know,” Michael said, studying the outfits and grinning. “I think our jeans need
to be tighter. Show off our butts, Haha.”
Michael Jamieson was mischievous and he was witty. He liked the Beatles. He liked
Mountain Dew. And he loved baseball. He kept sports sections boxed up under his bed,
with trading cards of his hero, Nolan Ryan.
When Michael was a kid, his stepfather, Randy Mapes, took him to a baseball camp run
by former Tigers star Bill Freehan. Michael wanted desperately to meet the famous man,
so Randy walked him over.
“Don’t be nervous when you talk to him, OK, Mike? he said.
“OK.”
“He’s just a guy, like you and me.”
“OK”
Then when Freehan looked up, Randy froze.
“Uh…” he mumbled. “I, uh…”
Michael never missed a beat.
“Hi, Mr. Freehan. My name is Michael. This is my father. He’s a little nervous…”
Like a lot of kids in Troy, Michael Jamieson blossomed through a bevy of school
activities. He pitched for the Troy Athens team. He played soccer. He played the viola.
He won an $8,000 scholarship to attend Western and his plan was to become a history
teacher.
For now, he was doing what most college freshmen do on summer break: working to
make some cash. He loved the idea of working with Andy. They remained tight friends,
even though they had chosen different colleges. Hey. Your high school ties are the ones
that blind, aren’t they?
And Michael and Andy had tied it together in high school. They’d done the prom thing
with their girlfriends. They’d hung out in Royal Oak coffee shops. They also took a
senior trip to Hilton Head Island, S.C., that was, for both of them, unforgettable. Each
day they would start walking down the beach, and an hour later they’d come back with
40 new friends. There’s a photo of them on that beach, all tanned skin and young muscle,
surrounded by girls, grinning like bandits.
Penny loves those photos.
“This bread is good, huh?" Her son said that night.
“Mmm,” she answered, smiling through her bites.
They stayed there a few more minutes, talking, eating, just another family moment in the
kitchen. The Michael said they were going over to Andy’s and Penny said OK.
She heard the door close behind them.