Off the I-15

The movie Speed Racer is full of high speeds and high speed crashes. Race cars twisting and turning around the fanciful tracks of the half-animated world that is Speed’s often collide, disintegrate or fall off cliffs. Each time, however, a glowing ball bounces from the wreck, carrying the driver to safety.

Unfortunately, real cars, the ones that drive Interstate 15 and Interstate 40, do not have these bouncy balls of safety. And even though the drivers are not pushing Speed Racer speeds — one car in the movie claimed to go 800 km per hour, nearly 500 miles per hour — or perfecting Speed Racer maneuvers — like weaving between sharp metal spikes YIKES! — the climb up Mountain Pass or an early morning blitz between Ludlow and Newberry Springs can be treacherous.

And unfortunately this week, we have all read how treacherous. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, four traffic fatalities in four days on three different roads. Each one is different and there is no way to establish a trend or rhyme or reason to the deaths.

Seatbelts might have made a difference in two of the deaths. Like the death of Brenda Wood early on Monday morning. Her niece left this comment on www.desertdispatch.com:

I have waited days to hear the details about my aunt Brenda wood’s death. I wish I couldve known in advance that she was going to be involved in this accident, maybe to try and stop it for ever happening again. It wasnt like her to forget her seatbelt, but she was really excited about her vegas trip for mothers day. She was like a mother to me. And I have not yet excepted that she is never comming back. Im never going anywhere without my seatbelt again. May you RIP Brenda Wood.

Of course, in the two fatal crashes on Tuesday and Wednesday, seatbelts did not seem to cure all. The recent deaths on roads surrounding Barstow, and all the ones still to come, underscore only one point: Those are dangerous roads out there.

So until Ford, Chevy, Toyota, Volvo or Honda comes out with Speed Racer-type safety technology and we can all bounce away from wrecks unscathed, drive safe.

Aaron Aupperlee | city editor

A lot of my time on the job is spent on the crime beat, which could easily leave me pretty cynical. But sometimes I get to cover stories that are touching and even inspiring. On Monday, for instance, Matthews Hamilton became one of my heroes. Most of my heroes aren’t famous. They’re people I know personally, like my friend Brian Pace, who graduated from college with a biology degree and immediately headed down to Ecuador to help clean up the site of a massive oil spill in the Amazon rain forest using oyster mushrooms. The mushrooms, through some chemical process that I don’t really understand, basically eat up the oil and render it harmless. Pretty cool stuff. But I digress.

Matthews Hamilton, my new hero, is a 16-year-old recovering from leukemia. Although his cancer is in remission, he still can’t go to Barstow High School with his twin brother and 15-year-old sister. He has to wear a mask over his face to keep from getting an infection that could land him back in the hospital. He can’t do tricks on his skateboard or bike like he used to.

Under the circumstances, a person could easily be pretty depressed, especially when that person is a teenager. When I was 16, I remember carrying on as if the world was coming to an end over much less serious problems. But Matthews struck me as one of the best-adjusted kids I have met. He’s polite, smart, and interested in the world around him. When he couldn’t go to school any more, he made new friends at the hospital. When he couldn’t ride a skateboard, he picked up the guitar. While teenagers can be notoriously hard to get a good quote from, Matthews not only had thoughtful answers to my questions, he also had questions for me. When did I decide I wanted to be a reporter? How many people work for the Desert Dispatch? Do I like my job? He said he wanted to take a photography class, so I let him take some pictures with my camera (it belongs to me, not the paper, so I can take risks like handing it off to a 16-year-old).

It’s nice to be reminded once in a while that the kids are all right and some people can make the best of hard-luck stories.

Abby Sewell | reporter

Emily Lambert probably won’t drive for another six years. David Pallante has at least four years until he gets behind the wheel — and pays at the pump.

Despite being years away from their 16th birthdays, these two students, and many other Newberry Springs Elementary School fifth-graders, knew exactly what was up with gas, the price.

While interviewing students at Newberry for a story about a proposed increase in school meal prices, many stressed that the high gas prices were more of a concern to their parents than an extra quarter for lunch. With gas prices in California up nearly 50 cents from last year and a 25 mile drive to school facing some parents, gas is the biggest concern, according to their kids.

Emily, 10, said her parents drive her from Barstow to Newberry for school each day and seem to spend a lot of money on gas. David, 12, said his parents do the same thing. When asked if they, and other fifth-graders, heard their parents talk about prices going up, all they could talk about was gas.

“That’s expensive,” said Emily. Other’s clamored about what they had heard from their parents about the price at the pump. It seems the price of gas was a daily discussion in most households and one the kids were privy too.

One student held up 10 fingers and told me that he heard gas was going to reach $10 a gallon soon. His teacher, Sheril Helms, quickly corrected him, showing only four fingers to indicate the possible gas ceiling.

Aaron Aupperlee | city editor

I got two questions. Ed Frawley had 10 minutes of photographs and narration.

The father of an 82nd Airborne Division soldier woke up the military to the horrors of some soldiers barracks with a amateur video, a couple of photos thrown together with a plea to anyone who watched to call Senators, Reps, the local newspaper and demand change. People watched, 142,455 on one You Tube iteration, and the Army responded.

The problems at Fort Bragg, N.C., where the photos were taken, were remedied. Every barrack worldwide was inspected, and the Army began discussing fixing the barrack problem.

On Thursday, Secretary of the Army Peter Geren visited Fort Irwin. The visit had been planned months in advance, but the timing meant that barracks would be the issue at hand. I was allowed to ask Geren two questions about barracks and that was it.

Soldiers wanted me to ask more. After talking with 11th ACR soldiers in the box on Thursday, I had an idea of the questions they wanted answers to. They wanted to know how much it would cost to fix their barracks, and if the Army would be willing to spend that on them.

I asked Geren that question and he ducked.

So who really changed things here? The professional journalist with my pen, pad, fancy digital voice recorder and a photographer to tag along or a concerned father with a few snap-shots, a determined voice and YouTube.

Aaron Aupperlee | city editor