My Commute

Over 30 years ago, my husband and I decided we wanted to “live in the country”.  So we moved to a small town that was a half-hour to an hour drive from several large suburbs.  This was the start of my career in commuting.  On a good day, my commute is 45 minutes one-way, about 35 miles.  On a typical day, it is about an hour.  We don’t even want to talk about what happens when it snows…

Generally, on a federal holiday as we had yesterday, the commute is pretty light.  I was about 10 minutes into my commute yesterday when traffic came to a complete stop.  We then proceeded to crawl along for another 10 minutes before I could see some flashing lights ahead.  I crawled along for another 5 minutes before I saw a state police car in the middle of three lanes.  The car was pulled sideways, blocking the lane so we had to move to either shoulder to pass.

As I got closer to the police car, I could see something on the ground on the other side of the car.  There were no other mangled cars in the area.  As I went around the car, I looked and saw a dog that looked like a yellow lab laying on his side.  I also saw a Michigan State Trooper sitting cross-legged on the pavement stroking the dog. 


That image of the trooper sitting on the ground stayed in my head for quite a while.  It was so sad.  All day long I wondered if the poor dog was ok.  Today, the local paper had the story.  The dog was darting in and out of traffic, and people were swerving.  The trooper managed to block the highway and get close enough to the dog to attach a hitch to his collar.  The dog was scared, tired, and his paws were bleeding and hurt from the pavement.  A passer-by stopped to help with a blanket.  The dog is being treated by a local vet and will be ok.  The word is going out to find the owners, but if they are not found, others have offered to take the dog.

HAPPY ENDING!!   Thank you, Michigan State Police Trooper Deanne Oswald-DeBottis.