Paul's Comments

The 1950s song "Teen Angel," by Mark Dinning, tells the story of a teenage boy and his girlfriend, who are involved in an automobile accident at a railroad crossing, and they both escape the wreck okay, but she runs back to the accident to get the high-school ring her boyfriend gave her, and in the process is hit and killed by the train.

I guess we can say something like "thank goodness she got killed," which sounds callous and cruel, but think about it. If she's stupid enough to run back to an automobile to get a memento which they probably could have bought another one for the equivalent today of $50 (probably bought for $3-$5 then), she probably would have married this kid, and they'd have popped out a bunch of kids with the same defective genetic material that makes them stupid enough to run into danger for trivial reasons.

I crossed a railroad crossing without enough room once, and only once. I made a stupid mistake in which I wasn't thinking. It was the longest 30 seconds in my life waiting for the light to change, and probably praying to God a train didn't come by. I never made that mistake again. Harmless error, but I learned.

But what causes someone to run onto a railroad track to get a probably replaceable trinket merely because of sentimental value? Someone who isn't thinking. Now the question comes up, did she not know the train was coming, or did she hear it and think she could retrieve his ring in time?

Maybe I'm overanalyzing an old pop song which might simply be a story the writer made up, but if something like that did happen, I wonder sometimes how so many people lived long enough to grow old. Perhaps it's a matter of chance; I made a mistake once crossing a railroad track without making sure I had escape clearance, but it was harmless because nothing happened. Other people weren't so lucky.

[Update 5/18/2010] No, wait, there is a difference - a big one - from a momentary lack of care and concern, a minor error either of carelessness or forgetfulness, like my railroad track incident, and someone who, in a position of safety throws themselves into a clear place of obvious danger over something as trivial as a memento of minor, mere sentimental value that can be replaced, and probably cheaply at that. It might be one thing if it was the other way around, if he had gone running, oblivious to the consequences, for the high school ring that she had given him, if, say, she had been killed or died in some other incident, and he was in an accident and wanted to get her ring because it is irreplaceable, but that too represents close to rank insanity. But it's still stupid to put one's own irreplaceable life, of which, once you die, you're quite probably gone forever, at risk over a possession, no matter how much sentimental value it has. If it was a dog or a cat, that I can understand, people bond to pets as strongly as if they were their own children, but dying over the retrieval of a lost posession is stupid!

On the other hand, I'm almost 50 years old, I do know I'm going to die, (and it's a lot closer now than the beginning of my life was), this was a 16-year-old, and one thing 16-year-olds don't realize yet is that their existence is finite and their life is easily lost if they act carelessly. This, of course, is the reason military organizations draft young people like 18-year-olds (international treaty obligations prohibit inducting child soldiers but it goes on anyway), they think they're immortal and are extremely moldable and easily turned into the mindless zombies their superiors want who are willing to follow orders even where those orders very likely might get them killed.[End Update]