Opinion
Recently Team DUI delivered its vital message through presentations to seventh and eighth grade students at Lucerne Elementary School.
Team DUI’s facilitator, California Highway Patrol Officer Kory Reynolds, and our messengers, Karen Petz, Kathy Testa and Wendy Jensen, reached out to these students with their efforts to teach our youth the dangers and consequences of driving under the influence.
This young audience listened with their minds and their hearts.
Each speaker reached deep into their hearts to help secure the future safety of the students.
As one speaker said, “It is not easy for us to stand in front of this class, reliving painful memories that expose our painful tragedies due to bad decisions.”
Officer Reynolds spoke with the students about what they can do in the event they are ever in a situation involving alcohol and how to be prepared beforehand with an exit strategy.
He encouraged the students to have conversations with their parents in order to prevent undesirable situations should the students end up in a potentially dangerous situation involving alcohol.
He also shared with the students the affects poor decisions have on many lives including first responders.
He helped the students to understand that even though first responders are trained to respond to various situations; it does not mean that they are not affected by the tragedies they see as many of the casualties of DUI will stay vivid in the minds of first responders forever.
Kathy Testa recounted how her son grew up in an environment of alcohol and drugs which ultimately resulted in his poor choice to drink and drive, causing a man to die as a result of that decision. She spoke about how his poor decision affected so many lives in so many ways.
Students heard from the heart of a mother of the consequences of a tragedy she and her son will live with for the rest of their lives. Kathy said she will tell this painful story everyday of her life if it would save just one child.
Wendy Jensen drove two hours to deliver her presentation to these students. Her presentation was emotionally powerful, having been a prior teacher’s assistant at Lucerne Elementary.
Wendy made a poor choice about drinking and driving.
In 2007 she drove 100 miles per hour the wrong way on the freeway. Her blood alcohol level was .20, which is more than twice the legal limit. She hit her victim’s vehicle head-on, nearly killing an innocent man. Her victim spent an entire year in the hospital.
Wendy was sentenced to jail and lost everything that mattered to her in her life. She told the students it all began at a very early age, sipping alcohol as a child and continuing to conceal her drinking throughout her childhood.
She shared with them her enduring struggle to rebuild her life all because of a bad decision.
Karen Petz, retired from the Northshore Fire Protection District, brought to life the painful memories of the death of her son on his 25th birthday due to an alcohol-related tragedy.
She and her husband, Ken, EMTs with the fire department at the time, were among the first responders on the scene, only to discover their own son.
Twenty-six years have passed, but through the everlasting grief within this mother’s heart, students saw and heard first hand the devastation that will never go away because of a wrong decision.
These four speakers bared their souls in order that these students could have a chance at life. It is not easy to do this, as each time a messenger speaks; the wounds in their hearts grow deeper.
No one is immune from DUI. You don’t have to be driving to be a victim. Everyday innocent people are injured or lose their lives at the hands of a DUI driver.
Drinking and driving is no accident; it is a poor choice that is completely preventable.
Alcohol is the No 1 cause of death among teenagers.
For readers who are parents, please have that important conversation with your child before tragedy strikes.
Share with them the exit strategy that could save their lives. Make a plan that can save their lives.
Lake County is fortunate to have the dedication and courageousness of all the members of Team DUI. Because of the message Team DUI delivers, lives will be saved; maybe even your life.
Team DUI welcomes speakers and volunteers. For more information about Team DUI call 707-994-4886.
Judy Thein is founder of Team DUI. She lives in Clearlake, Calif.
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- Written by: Judy Thein
Stan Musial was before my time. But in a way he is the reason I fell in love with the game of baseball.
You see, Musial was my father's baseball hero. My Dad was living in Missouri during those all-important years in a baseball fan's life, the pre-teen years when lifelong fans are molded from the clay of boys and girls.
Musial played for the St. Louis Cardinals during those years. In fact, he played for the St. Louis Cardinals for his entire 22-year career.
They called him Stan The Man, and he was the greatest Cardinals player ever, and one of the greatest all-time, period. The numbers are golden: seven National League batting titles, lifetime .331 hitter, 475 home runs, 24 all star appearances.
In 1963, Musial was 42 years old and almost done, and my father had recently moved his young family from San Francisco out to the suburbs that were then metastasizing in the walnut groves of Contra Costa County.
Musial had announced his intention to retire at the end of that season, and fans in every National League city turned out to bid the future Hall of Famer adieu. And that was the moment that my father chose to introduce me to the game that would be a part of my life thereafter.
Who knows? Maybe my Dad really just wanted to see his hero Stan The Man trot out to the field one more time, to look out onto the field and somehow see his own boyhood in Musial's batting stance, his swing, a tip of his cap.
Baseball does that to men, I know that now. So, surely my baptism into the church of baseball wasn't the only reason we went to Candlestick Park that summer of 63 to see the Giants play the Cardinals.
I was 5 years old that summer. I don't remember the exact date. I don't remember Stan Musial. I remember what every 5 year old remembers from his first big league baseball game – that first bright glimpse of impossible green as you ascend from a dark stairway to your section of the stands, holding your Dad's hand – and suddenly the diamond takes shape in front of you, the white lines glinting in the sun so perfectly, almost painfully true.
And I remember Willie Mays. How could you not remember the first time you saw Willie Mays play baseball? I don't remember exactly what he did that day. I just remember looking out and seeing him in centerfield, like a shining Lamborghini, looking fast just standing still. I was instantly in awe of the man.
Looking through the box scores from that year, I like to think it was July 5. On that day, the Giants were down five runs to four, but tied it up in the bottom of the ninth inning, and won it in the bottom of the eleventh. Mays went two for four, Willie McCovey hit one out, and Musial got a hit too. Nice day at the ballyard.
But it doesn't really matter what game it was. It was my first game, that's what matters. As my father was watching the hero of his boyhood take a final bow, I was experiencing the first day of my formative years as a baseball fan. I was new clay ready to be molded by the grand old game.
Baseball wasn't on the television all season then. Nothing was on the television then as much as everything is on the television now.
Baseball then was a game that happened on transistor radios with telescopic chrome antennas, set out on workbenches in garages with the doors open to the summer streets of the neighborhood.
Baseball happened in the sports section of the San Francisco Chronicle. It was too big for me to open and hold up, but after my Dad was done with it, I would spread out the pages next to my trucks and my green army men on the big corded rug in the living room, and try to study the secret code of the box score.
Baseball happened on the backs of cards that smelled like bubble gum sticks and lived in shoeboxes under the beds of children. Entire seasons were played out in the whirring minds of sick boys sitting cross-legged on blue plaid bedspreads covered with carefully arranged baseball cards. Teams were formed, stats were compared, winners were declared.
And, when you turned on the radio, or spread out the sports section, or when you opened up that shoebox, memories came out. You could see the flashing green of the outfield in the sun, and smell the salty foam on the beers of the men in sport shirts. You could hear the fat guy yelling at the ump, “Hey Blue, try using both eyes.”
You could see Willie Mays rounding third base and headed for home as a roar climbed up the throat of the crowd. Or you could see Stan the Man stepping up to home plate, smiling out at the pitcher.
Stan Musial died Saturday, at the accomplished age of 92. Somehow, sadness doesn't seem to be that much in order here. Rather, it feels like a moment of recognition and gratitude.
Thanks Mr. Musial, for all the memories you gave to the game, for being the biggest reason I went to Candlestick Park for the first time.
Thanks for being the one tipping your cap for my father while I couldn't take my eyes off Willie Mays in the on-deck circle.
Roy Dufrain Jr. lives in Lakeport, Calif.
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- Written by: Roy Dufrain Jr.
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