December 4, 2008 – Commuting Past a Life in the Balance

It’s Thursday morning, December 4, 2008 just around 8:00 AM. I’ve dropped off some laundry at San Jose Laundry on Winfield Boulevard and exited the industrial strip mall—this stretch of Winfield is lined with them—turned right and headed toward Coleman Avenue where I turn right at the traffic light and drive over Almaden Creek to Almaden Expressway, the six-lane thoroughfare that everyone in Almaden Valley relies on to access Highways 85 if they are commuting north and west to high-tech campuses in Santa Clara, Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Mountain View, and further north to Palo Alto and Menlo Park. For those of us heading into San Jose, our choices are Almaden Expressway or Highway 87—great if you’re car-pooling but as slow as, if not slower than, Almaden Expressway—with all its traffic lights during the morning commute.

Joining the stream of traffic on the expressway at Coleman, I accelerate to the speed limit but then begin to slow as I approach the Blossom Hill Road intersection where the light has turned green for us but the queued traffic is taking its time getting started. By the time I come abreast of the traffic light, the fast lane has begun to clear as cars merge right readying to exit onto Highway 85 less than a quarter mile ahead. By the time I reach the 85-underpass, my lane is clear and I make the lights before and after the underpass, as well as the light at Branham Lane further on. Now, moving at nearly 50 MPH the traffic cluster I’m in races toward the Capital Expressway overpass and the traffic light at Foxworthy Avenue. There the light is also green for us but we have to slow to accommodate traffic merging on from Capital Expressway as well as commuters from the sprawling high-density Communication Hills Community coming on from Old Almaden Road. The community is that development covering the bronze colored hill you see landing at San Jose Mineta Airport from the south off the port side of the plane.

Beyond this bottleneck the traffic picks up speed again as we lose commuters in the left lane peeling off onto Lincoln Avenue—I always wonder who works in Willow Glen—but begin to slow as we approach the intersection at Ironwood Avenue, on the right, and Almaden Road, on the left. The light is green for us and we race onward. I’m in the middle lane and speed up to merge into the right lane just as a late model Toyota Celica merges on in front on me from Curtner Avenue. He accelerates and moves into the middle lane as I pass him in the right lane and slow to allow a red BMW 350 to merge on from the Canoas Garden Avenue on-ramp a few hundred yards down the road. By now, everyone going to Highway 87 is in the far left lanes and everyone going into downtown San Jose is in the right two lanes as we speed over the 87 overpass and begin to slow as we approaches the traffic light at the San Jose Avenue intersection.

This stretch of Almaden Expressway from the Highway 87 overpass to just beyond the San Jose Avenue intersection has remained unchanged since my family and I arrived here in the mid-1970s. On either side of the highway are industrial strip malls of long single story buildings, separated by open space to accommodate parking and traffic, that cater to collision repair, automotive maintenance, brake and tire repair and replacement, etc. Immediately on my left after I crest the overpass over Highway 87 is the South Valley Automotive Plaza with its rows of shops and the Enterprise Rent A Car handy for providing transportation after you’re dropped your car off and need a ride. The mall is accessible by Villa Stone Drive, which runs parallel to the expressway. Just north and west of the mall on Villa Stone drive at its intersection with Orto Street is a block of residences mixed in among the industrial park—single story 1950s-1960s homes if I were to guess. Further on is Almaden Body and Paint Shop with its sprawling parking lot of cars in various stages of repair along Stone Court: a side street that “T’s” into Villa Stone Drive. On the right side of the expressway is a sign for AAA Furnace on Stone Street which also parallels the expressway on the north east side.

The backup at the traffic light on San Jose Avenue, where I’m stuck three cars back, extends rearward toward the overpass to Orto Street—about four or five blocks. The light changes and the cars rush through the light and have to slow behind the backup at the next light along Almaden Road—the expressway ended just after we passed through the intersection at San Jose Avenue. The light holding us up now allows the residence of a large apartment complex on the right of Almaden Road to leave. The sprawling community of three story multi-unit apartment buildings occupy a large right triangular plot of land with Almaden Road forming the hypotenuse, La Rossa Circle, the next street up from San Jose Avenue—without a traffic light—forming the shorter leg and Little Orchard Street, to the north and east, the longer leg. The community was built in the 1980s when my daughters were in high school. We drove past the area en route to school every weekday for most of the six years it took the two of them to get their diplomas. A similar triangle of apartment dwellings occupy the plot of ground on the left side of Almaden Road with West Alma Avenue forming the larger leg and Shadowgraph Drive the other leg.

Beyond the light at the apartment complex entrance, the traffic moves to the next backup at the West Alma Avenue intersection with Almaden Road, where I eventually make the right off Almaden and onto West Alma heading toward Monterey Highway about 600 yards—around a quarter mile—away. I drive past new town homes on the left, a large commercial office building on the right—newly built and unoccupied as are a number of the new homes across the street. Further on I pass the DMV office at Plum Street before arriving at the intersection at Monterey Highway where the West Alma Avenue traffic can turn left from the two left lanes. I move into the left most which is shorter but I’m still back about five or six cars. As the light turns green for us, the two lanes begin the curve around only to find that the right most lane of the three on Monterey Highway—it’s officially South First Street—is block by a fire engine. The traffic slows to a crawl as cars slowly interleave in the middle lane just in front of the Denny’s Diner at the corner of Monterey and Alma. As I creep past the fire engine blocking the lane, I see a fireman on his knees besides a man lying on the sidewalk in front of the large AutoMart used car lot—the sign has a model T beneath the words AutoMart. The fireman is administering CPR on the fallen soul, who is completely inert. Just beyond the fire engine, I see a car—Japanese make, possibly a Nissan—and an SUV—first impression is a late model GMC. Both vehicles are pulled up onto the sidewalk. The scene suggests a minor fender bender but that shock of the accident drove one of the drivers—or possibly a passenger—to a heart attack.

I drive on, the scene receding in my rearview mirror as I ponder the reality for the poor individual lying on the pavement, his life hanging in the balance as the medic attempts to forestall the inevitable until another day. What’s going through the patient’s mind? That he’s having a heart attack and his spirit is hovering over his body looking down watching as the medic attempts to coax life his life force back into the inert shell of skin and skeleton. Is his will to live greater than the urge to leave all the suffering and pain that the inert body will administer if he returns? I leave the scene realizing that I will never know the outcome of the drama. Does the hero manage to hold on returning to his body and bearing the pain and panic of an ambulance ride to the Santa Teresa Community Hospital—West Alma Avenue to Highway 87, south on 87 to Highway 85, west on 85 to the Cottle Road exit then to the emergency room all traveling against the commute, 10 to 15 minutes at most. Or does the poor soul expire on that sidewalk, his life becoming part of the past, and the world around him like me leaving him in the wake.