We've named our vehicles...I remember I named my first bike when I was a girl "Cassandra". Little did I know I'd make a career in forecasting... '74 Datsun B210 was Derryl '78 Ford Fairmont was Freddie '79 Honda Prelude was Handy '81 Honda Prelude was Dashielle '85 Cutlass was Carrie (station wagon) '88 Mercury Tracer was Tracey '95 Subaru wagon was Alvin '99 Acura is Casey '08 Impreza is Kirby Our pick up trucks don't seem to get a name, though we had one called Fannie as the important part of the truck is the back end. Heck I've even named the recycle bin Beulah.

"in many cases the abuse to DH was triggered BECAUSE (his) Mom had seen a beating coming her way and diverted it with comments about something DH had done that needed correcting." I was my mother's favorite scapegoat; I got beaten when she wanted to beat me; it had nothing to do with anything I did or did not do. I am nearly 60 years old, & I still feel terrible guilt about an incident that happened when I was about 4; one 2-year-old brother was raking in the garden, & his twin & I were playing together. Somehow, I can't remember how, I hurt my brother, ran into him with a toy or something, & my mother came raging out of the house with her nostrils flared & her teeth set & her enraged look on her face, razor strap in her hand. I begged Mark to tell her that Dave did it, & he did. Dave got the beating. I was terrified of my mother until she died, in her eighties, tied to her wheelchair in the nursing home, out of her gourd. One of her favorite things to do was to beat the he!! out of all 3 of us; she'd start with Dave, yank him up by one arm until his feet barely touched the ground& whack him several times, go on to Mark, snatch him up & whack him a few times, & then turn on me & beat me until her rage was slaked. I have a lump on one of my ribs that I can't explain; I suspect she broke that rib yanking me up & holding me in mid-air while she beat me. I've seen that same sort of deflection of rage several times, once with a woman who alawys got her husband all riled up at somebody else when she sensed that he was building up a head of steam, & once with a man who goaded his wife into being enraged at somebody, anybody, else. I finally understood why he was always talking ugly about somebody or other when the wife's mother (in her eighties, had just had heart surgery) had to call the police to get away from this woman. People will do terrible things to keep from getting another beating. What is on that video is not "spanking"; the full-grown man hauls his arm back all the way & beats that girl; when she tries to get away, he grabs her & does it again. When she makes it to the bed, he turns away & then turns back & hauls his arm back all the way again & hits her on the arm & the side. That, dear friends, is called beating the he!! out of somebody. "Part of what perpetuates abuse is justification of it." Amen to this, too. It's always the victim's fault; one of the classic lies is "she kept aggravating me until I finally couldn't stand it anymore" which is similar to another classic "I don't know why she's like that." This guy criticizing & *blaming* his daughter for posting the video is the same; he's on the internet beating the daylights out of her, yet he doesn't try to defend his behavior; he blames her for posting the video! As far as beating being the norm in times past, *that does not make it okay*. It used to be English common law that a husband could beat his wife all he wanted to as long as he didn't use a stick any bigger in circumference than his thumb. In some countries, it's still legal to kill your wife or daughter if she "shames" you by, say, getting raped & thus no longer being "pure". Does the fact that it's legal & that it has precedent (that's the way it always has been done) make it right? Victims are often afraid to leave their abusers; these rage-a-holics & violence junkies tear their victims down so that the victims don't think they can possibly make it without this incredibly strong person. They think that the only way they can get by is to try not to enrage their tormentor. which of course doesn't work, because the abuser dishes out beatings beatings when he/she has built up a head of steam & *wants* to beat somebody. It's horrible & it's inexcuseable.

I was only half awake/aware/literate ... ... or of sound mind that day/night, I fear, Sherwin. (NO! that's exactly what I said it was, smarty - "s j e r i n"- "sjerin"! O.K. - sometimes you can be helpful, invisible helper ... but you need to learn your place! I was born, according to all reports, on 30 January 1929. Same date (but not year) as Franklin Delano Roosevelt, former president ... who was, as one who had coped with it successfully, the patron of the anti-polio service agency many years ago. I'll have to get some cookies, sweets, efx. (That's "etc.", know-it-all!) as I'm to take the helpers for the coffee to the ROMEOs (1) gathering at the village church on the next day. ole joyful 1. That's as in "Retired Old Men Eating Out", as they renamed themselves, several years ago, and they didn't find my suggestion that it should be "ROMDO", as in "Retired Old Men Drinking Out" appealing. I call it "The Old Farts' Club". o j

Sorry, I failed to see that this kind of black box is different from something insurance companies once touted to record your safe driving and 'help you save on premiums'. (Hahahaha!) We'll skip the stress of small claims court, and Travelers has no motive for budging. They might have if we'd had Collision coverage and State Farm arguing for us. The nicest thing I can believe about the other driver is that he just didn't feel or hear the collision when he backed up. It's unlikely, but 'possible'. We can afford to pay for this, but my belief in people 'doing the right thing' has taken a hit. This little fender bender pales to nothing in the news of a horrible accident last week where a young woman driving 'wrong way' crashed head-on into another vehicle, killing herself and five of six family members -- wife/mother and four children -- leaving the husband/father in critical condition. The family was enroute to a vacation in Minnesota. Thank you all for your helpful comments...and commiseration.