Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Deadly Mascot wreck

It is so much fun to ride the bumper cars at a fair. But in real life, a pick up broadsiding a two-door at over 50 mph, killing the driver beside an idyllic tourist spot, seriously catapulting the passenger out the back window, such banging of one metal shell against another upends and sometimes ends a whole life.


Such was the case in Mascot, a little twin town of Monterey. Hundreds of tourists stop at Mascot every year to see the water-powered grist mill. Mascot is at the intersection of Stumptown and Newport Roads, about 1 mile southwest of Monterey.


The Mill Stream runs through the town of about 8 houses. See the falls in the background of photo. On the other side of the stream runs a narrow sanctuary enjoyed by egrets and kingfishers. When I was a boy tramps camped in the woods there.


The intersection is dangerous. A tourist was killed here only about 4 years ago. This evening I saw the cross with flowers in memory of a Lisa. How many persons died natural deaths in Mascot? Did an original American, centuries ago, take an arrow in the sternum here?

Monterey this summer is bracketed by fatal accidents, the last day of July and about the last day of August, both on Newport Road.

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