Assessing My Own Mortality

Since the I-35W bridge collapsed on Wednesday evening, I have spent a bit of time looking into my own mortality. I sit back and think, why was I not on that bridge?

You see, I should have been. Every day, I leave work at 5.45pm. Driving from my building where I park my car, I travel around the back of the Metrodome, up 11th Ave to Washington Ave, turn right across 35W then left, onto the ramp and onto the bridge. That takes twenty minutes. Twenty minutes added on to 5.45pm gives us a time of 6.05pm. Thus, at 6.05pm on Wednesday I should have, would have been on that bridge.

At 6.05pm Wednesday August 1st, 2007 the I-35W Mississippi River bridge collapsed, all 450 odd feet of it, 65 feet down into the river below.

But I wasn't on it. Why not? For some strange reason, I decided to leave ten minutes early that day. Ten minutes earlier taking me over the bridge at 5.55pm. I never leave early. If anything I leave later more often than not. But something told me to leave early that day. What is was, I do not know. I wonder what it was? Was it some internal feeling of unease? Was it some greater power watching out for me? I know my call was not as close as some, but still, it's unsettling. Some people changed their routines and ended up in the midst of that collapse, others changed their routine and missed it. Like me.

The No. 43 Cheerios/Betty Crocker Dodge, driven by Bobby Labonte, commemorated the I35W bridge tragedy Sunday at the Pennsylvania 500. The car is sponsored by Twin Cities-based General Mills.