"I had no business doing what I did," she said yesterday after surviving about 12 hours pinned under a scooter that she took unannounced from her nursing home in Montgomery to satisfy her sweet tooth.The Star Ledger, January 12, 2005
January 12 marks the end of the darkest six weeks of the year in this neck of the woods. A comet hovers near the Pleiades tonight above the dreary clouds.
Jean Woodward is 86 years old--she was born as the Great War ended, and Prohibition started. In her lifetime, the wars returned, and booze prevailed. She is old enough to know better.
Woodward rode to a convenience store Friday to buy a chocolate bar when she said the scooter tipped over after hitting a rock when she turned sharply around a tree in the woods near the nursing home.There she lay with her right foot wedged underneath her Amigo scooter from sometime after 3 p.m. Friday to about 3 a.m. Saturday.
Remember the woods? Remember the shortcut to the candy store? Bullies and first kisses, school notes scattered in the brush.
I know a lot of kids didn't take the shortcut. A lot of kids got through junior high without a daylight kiss. A lot of kids never got their noses bloodied, either. It's good advice if you want to feel safer. Jean Woodward is 86 years old--safety's not her primary goal anymore, if it ever was.
Police said they were notified of her disappearance by administrators at the home at 2:46 a.m. Saturday. Three officers who went searching for her in the woods spotted the scooter gleaming in the moonlight and found her about 3 a.m. Woodward was semiconscious and barely breathing under a freezing rain.
(OK, OK--I know the story makes little sense, but I quote it verbatim. The moon was not out at 3 a.m. on January 10--you can check the Old Farmer's Almanac. And even if it were, it's tough to see the moon when it is raining. Clearly the writer of the article fell in love with Jean, and romanticized the story. I fell in love with Jean, too. You may as well before the story is finished.)
"I have to go back and eat humble pie," she said. "I was wrong all the way down for what I did. But it was a beautiful evening, and I wanted to go for a ride."
Well, for the folks who avoid shortcuts, the proper authorities have been notified. The New Jersey Department of Health and Human Resources has gotten involved, "investigating the incident." The staff has been questioned, and Charles Mooney, the COO for Presbyterian Homes and Services, said all the right things. Salaried folks with important titles will fill out the forms, and even higher salaried folks will sign them.
I bet an unsalaried child with a sense of life knows about shortcuts and scooters. And I bet Jean would take the ride again in a heartbeat. Unless someone locks the scooter now.
Which, of course, would be a sin. It was, after all, a beautiful evening.
All quotes from "Harm befalls senior on unauthorized trip: Woman found 12 hours after scooter crash," Ralph Ortega, The Star Ledger, Wednesday, January 12, 2005, p. 42. | 
