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I was driving around Erie this week and went past a few places I worked when I was a teenager. Where did you work around Erie in your youth?
For about a month, I was a busboy at the Hibachi restaurant on 12th Street in Millcreek. The job, much like any bus boy job, kinda stunk but after everything closed, some older Japanese men would appear and play cards in the back. If you hung out long enough, and you were next to a man who won a hand, he’d often slip you a twenty. Some nights, you could make an extra $100 just standing watching some guys play cards.
The job I held the longest was at the 8th Street Burger King near Villa High School. I was there for a few years and summer or two during college. I could start a whole blog dedicated to the fun times we had there going on the roof, ordering pizza to be delivered or playing Star Wars trash compacter in the cardboard box dumpster.
Where did you work?
My first non-babysitting job was at Evans Acres, up on Hannon Road in Harborcreek. It was an under-the-table kind of pay, but it was still a job because I was required to be there every evening to feed and water the horses. After that, a short lived stint at a short lived M.C. Coop’s (owned by the people who own the Waterfall, I believe) in the Kmart plaza on Buffalo Road. I worked at Tops (38th street) during my Senior year of high school. After that, I didn’t work again until a few years ago.
Ooh, teenage jobs. I had two, aside from babysitting for all the kids in the neighborhood.
The first was another regular babysitting job–I worked with two of my closest friends at the nursery at St. Peter’s Cathedral. We’d go to the early Mass on Sunday mornings, then watch kids of all ages in the basement of the church for the other three Masses. It was easy, and we had fun. But it’s weird to see some of the kids we babysat graduating high school or getting married now. Yikes.
I also worked for most of high school and on and off through college at Baskin Robbins in the mall. Here too I worked with my closest friends, and it was a great job. There was tasty ice cream, we never had to work past 10, and our friends always stopped by to say hi. Best job I ever had.
My first job was in a pet store. (I grew up in Maryland.) I kept many tropical fish, and the owner got to know me. One day, he asked if I would be willing to come work for a few hours each week. So I got to sell tropical fish, and also, I got to clean out the cages. :-p The ferret cages stunk the worst.
Why is it that anytime there is a motorcycle accident that the first thing asked or mentioned is about a helmet.
What about asking “How did it happen?” or “Gee, I hope they are all right.”
Whether or not the rider/s were wearing a helmet or not had no bearing on what caused the accident (which by the way are more often caused by the automobile involved).
The people reporting these stories need to focus on something other than the helmet issue. Remember it is not illegal to ride without a helmet now in most states. It is illegal to not wear your seat belt.
There have been many, many automobile accidents where the drivers and passengers were not wearing their seat belt and they are not made to feel guilty as motorcyclists are about not wearing a helmet.
I have been struck 3 times in almost 30 years of riding. All my accidents were caused by the driver of the car. I have never been cited or fined. The last time I did not have a helmet on and even if I had, it would have had no bearing on my injuries.
I witnessed a fatality involving a motorcycle recently and if he had had a helmet on it would have not made a difference. The driver in front of him simply stopped in the middle of the left hand lane for absolutely no discernible reason.
Yes there is risk involved. Same as driving a car, sailing a boat, skydiving, or sports. Everything we do involves a degree of risk that you have to be willing to accept.
I feel that everyone who gets a driver’s license should have to ride on the back of a motorcycle for a short while. Then maybe more people would appreciate the vulnerability we feel and have more appreciation for motorcycle riders and the skill involved.
Thanks for reading.
The reason that the helmets are mentioned is because the vast majority of the population doesn’t ride (including me)and if my car with anti-lock brakes, air bags, roll cage body gets into an accident and I am not wearing a seat belt I am fined. Motorcycle mortality from head traumas are up 80% since they repealed the helmet law.
In New York state you get fined for talking on a cell phone if they repealed that law I am pretty sure you wouldn’t see an 80% increase in anything.
It’s the ‘unfairness’ of the law that I think upsets most people.
I don’t think they should bring the law back, but I think the law should be consistent and let me CHOOSE to wear a seat belt.
Hello Erie!
My name is Pericles Lewnes, I am a filmmaker from maryland and I have a feature, LOOP, in the 2008 Great Lakes Independent Film Festival screening this weekend. I will be attending with my wife, producer, Lisa Delucia. This is only LOOP’s second public screening. I would like to invite you to come out this weekend for the entire festival. I have included a bulletin about our screening below, but links at the bottom will take you to the festival itself.
LOOP is a surreal thriller and a link to LOOP’s Great Lakes Festival page is below.
Thank You,
Pericles Lewnes
Director – LOOP
——————————————————————————————————————————————————-
LOOP has been nominated for BEST NARRATIVE FEATURE at the prestigious 2008 Great Lakes Independent Film Festival rolling this week, Thursday, September 25th to Sunday, September 28th.
LOOP will screen on FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 26 at 6:45PM at the Theatre 145, 145 West 11th Street , Erie Pa
The Great Lakes Independent Film Festival is the first film festival, world wide, to be on the cutting edge of film presentation, completely utilizing the DLP? technology by Texas Instruments.
LOOP will screen in DLP!
Check out the website!
2008 Great Lakes Independent Film Festival
The LOOP 2008 Great Lakes Festival Page is here…
LOOP Festival Page
LOOP Director, Pericles Lewnes with his wife, LOOP Producer Lisa DeLucia Lewnes will in Erie for the screening and plenty of partys!
The 2008 Great Lakes Film Festival is packed with many cutting edge indy film from all genres and never disappoints!
LOOP is Director Pericles Lewnes latest feature since his first, cult classic, Redneck Zombies from Troma. This is only LOOP’s second public screening.
If you are close by, come on out and meet Pericles and Lisa. They will be at the festival, from Thursday to Saturday.
Hope to see you there!
I understand – It is frustrating that I can choose not to wear a helmet, but I have to wear my seat belt.
There are days when I wear my helmet, but now that I live in Florida it is just too hot most days to do so. I let my feelings guide me.
It has been proven that seat belts can save your life, but I have seen and heard of far too many motorcycle fatalities even with a helmet.
Good, safe, proactive, alert riding will go father than a good helmet, but many people who are killed on a bike ride like they stole it and bring much on themselves.
I am afraid the debate will not end any time soon.
When did Finney’s Pumpkin Farm shut down – This is sad. I never heard about it.
A study by the USDOT published September of last year showed that 44% of all motorcycle accidents are single vehicle accidents.
The majority of motorcycle crashes are NOT caused by automobiles.
Sad to hear the closing of the time and temp phone line. Not that I utilize the service very often, and I’d imagin it’s practically automated with it’s updates, so I wonder why they are shutting it down.
My concern is that I always give that number when a stores asks you for a phone number. I want to buy my wrench at Lowes, but I don’t need them calling me. After providing this number (which I thought most people knew) to hundreds of requests, I never have been called…so it worked for me.
To Mr. DANZ
I have been hit 3 times in 25 years – 100% of my motorcycle accidents were caused by automobiles.
Please Read # 6
http://www.motorcycle-accidents.com/pages/stats.html
Motorcycle Accident Causes and Factors
In 2006 about 4,935 people were killed riding motorcycles of different kinds (see above). A major Motorcycle accident study analyzed information from thousands of accidents, drew conclusions about the causes and looked for ways people can avoid accidents. The “Motorcycle Accident Cause Factors and Identification of Countermeasures,” was a study conducted by the University of Southern California, with funds from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, researcher Harry Hurt investigated nearly every aspect of 900 motorcycle accidents in the Los Angeles area. Additionally, Hurt and his staff analyzed 3,600 motorcycle traffic accident reports in the same geographic area. Below are some of the findings.
Motorcycle Accident Study findings:
1. Approximately three-fourths of these motorcycle accidents involved collision with another vehicle, which was most usually a passenger automobile.
2. Approximately one-fourth of these motorcycle accidents were single vehicle accidents involving the motorcycle colliding with the roadway or some fixed object in the environment.
3. Vehicle failure accounted for less than 3% of these motorcycle accidents….
[Editor's note: click here to view the remaining 53 items.]
Nice try. From your link:
The “Motorcycle Accident Cause Factors and Identification of Countermeasures,” was a study conducted by the University of Southern California, with funds from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, researcher Harry Hurt investigated nearly every aspect of 900 motorcycle accidents in the Los Angeles area.
The study I am referencing is nationwide accidents.
Please read the following PDF: http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/nrd-30/NCSA/Rpts/2006/810606.pdf
Let’s not forget this report that just came out this year showing that motorcycle fatalities due to head injuries are up following the repeal of the helmet law.
More discussion here.
It always boils down to the fact that the people who don’t ride a motorcycle are the ones who are always talking about helmets….
Also you have to take in consideration that there has been a huge surge in registered motorcycles over the past several years – so of course as new riders arrive, the accident stats go up before experience points go up – I bet when cars were new the accident rate was exponential for a long time.
My beginning point was that again, every time there is a motorcycle accident the first comment is usually about a helmet – remember, wearing or not wearing a helmet does not cause the accident, so why make that the first comment…
Well, if you read the PDF I linked to, it shows motorcyclists who wear helmets are actually less likely to be in an accident in the first place.
You can draw your own inference here…
Well, I have been in three accidents in 30 years – the first two I wore a helmet – State law – the third I did not.
Basically the same injuries to all three – Knee – torn acl. – Scrapes and bruised.
We all know you can skew statistics any way you want. I have seen just as many fatalities with helmets as with out – (Past EMT) -
I’m sorry, but you are the one who keeps trying to spin by using anecdotal evidence.
Which means I’m wasting my time here.
Do you even ride? If not, you will never understand.
again, my original point was about the story in the blog about a motorcycle accident…
“every time there is a motorcycle accident the first comment is usually about a helmet – remember, wearing or not wearing a helmet does not cause the accident, so why make that the first comment…”
It might be more appropriate to wish the poor guy well, instead of barking about whether or not he was wearing a helmet.
That’s all I started out saying and you got all defensive. Later. – I’m gone.
Defensive? That’s entertaining. If by defensive you mean refuting anecdotal spin you are falsely advancing as fact (you would make a good politician methinks), then sure. Again, nice try.
Sorry, but you need to go back and read your first post. It is clearly not all you were saying. And when I challenged your spin with facts, someone did indeed get defensive (hint, it wasn’t me ;)).
By the way, I’m a bicyclist. I ride more than a lot of people drive. I am nearly hit on an almost daily basis by inattentive/careless/plain bad drivers. I have been run off the road intentionally, sworn at, had things thrown at me, been threatened with arrest (by a rent-a-cop!) and violence. Oh, I’ve actually been hit twice too.
It’s dangerous out there and I have a responsibility to myself to ensure I am as safe as possible at all times. I don’t have to wear a helmet, but I do because it’s just plain stupid not to.
Don’t wear a helmet, just make sure your organ donor status is up to date. I guess the ‘good’ part about not wearing a helmet s that you’re much more likely to become a fatality statistic, therefore saving John Q. Public the expense of $$$ in medical care, rehabilitation, and CAT Fund losses. This way, the only expense will be for the Coroner to come and scoop you up, and for your funeral expenses.