[Moderating]
Saying “Fuck you” to other posters is against board rules. Please avoid this in the future.
No warning issued.[/Moderating]
While waiting at a stoplight a couple years ago, I noticed a shabby vinyl banner on a fence, blowing in the breeze. The wind picked up one of the fallen corners and I could see that it was a memorial (of sorts) to the 271 killed aboard AA 191 in 1979.
This is on the north west corner of Touhy and Mount Prospect in Des Plaines, Illinois. You can’t even see anything in the linked Streetview image, either it is behind vegetation, fallen down (there’s something there) or gone altogether.
It’s pretty sad that this is about all that is left. The crash wikipedia has only the briefest of mentions. The wiki also mentions a 2 foot tall brick memorial that I wasn’t aware of. Reading about it now, i see that it is at nearby Lake Park in Des Plaines.
It’s not exactly what the OP was going on about but I think of it every time I pass by.
Something similar is memorials to those dumbfucks who go around the gates at train crossings with their bicycles. No, no fucking memorial to you you selfish, entitled little piece of shit! You got killed due to your own stupidity. The gate was down, and you were so fucking special that you couldn’t wait for the train to pass and the gate to raise! You may be dead, but the totally innocent train driver has to live with the nightmare of thinking that he killed another human being.
If someone wants to memorialize you, maybe your friends can sponsor a urinal. Print an image of you on your bike on the porcelain so people can eternally piss on you.
Worked just south of there and when I saw the column of black smoke I thought it was a tire fire at the junk yard that was around there. Uh, no.
It it close enough to the road that it’s now a hazard to traffic? Should be at least 30 ft (ideally more) from the edge line.
Be pretty damn sad if their memorial kills someone.
My daughter died last month in an MVC that was not her fault(an oncoming driver didn’t see her and made a left turn that killed her). It happened on an urban street and I could not have (even if so inclined) planted a cross or anything else without a jackhammer. But the OP says s/he was angry already at an unnecessary long drive, and I understand the driver’s impulse to blame the victim, or those who love them, for an additional delay. My daughter’s death inconvenienced a whole lot of people, what with emergency vehicles and all, one way or another. On her behalf, I apologize. But when I see a roadside reminder that we can kill driving carelessly, I react differently than the OP. I guess I’m just not in much of a hurry anymore.
I don’t think so, there is a drainage ditch, then an embankment. The tree is part way up the embankment, which, other than the tree, is kept mown.
King, I was NOT blaming the victims of this horrendous MVA. I was apportioning blame to those laying a memorial at the site of their unfortunate deaths, and those rubbernecking drivers who had slowed the traffic down to walking pace…on one of the busiest roads in Melbourne at the busiest time of the year.
As I said in your memorial thread to your daughter, I am sorry for your loss, and hope her memory stays strong for you.
One like that here. Three kids killed. I think two were brothers. So up went a bench and flowers and three little trees, decorated at Christmas. It was all rather silly because the memorial was on the edge of a highway and there was no way to get to it without crossing 4 lanes of traffic and a median strip.
Over time the memorial got pretty shabby and I was thrilled to see that it had finally been demolished.
However, three new trees have been planted, where?, on the median strip. Where someday a driver will quite likely skid, swerve, be sideswiped, and end up wrapped around a tree, and people will bring flowers, etc.
You have nothing to apologize for.
My former neighbors’ 21-year-old daughter died 3 miles from our houses. It made her mother depressed to see the cross with her girl’s name every single time she needed to drive to the nearest city to go shopping.
Dig that hole a little deeper, K-wank. Maybe you’ll find opals.
I did not mean to suggest, kambuckta, that you were victim-blaming (you aren’t), and I appreciate your thoughts here and elsewhere. I was just pointing out that it seemed from your OP that you were already tired and irritated when you encountered the memorial-in-progress, and suggesting that the mourners received more of your ire that they might have deserved.
Hmm, must be a tonal issue. Your first post struck me as horrifyingly gleeful at the thought of dead drunk partiers.
In the same spirit: please won’t someone make it illegal to do “RIP” memorials in big vinyl letters on car rear windows?
I saw one recently for a guy named “Moe” Lester. 
Wish I was kidding.
The “angel baby” ones are disturbing to me too. I know that people who have experienced an infant loss want to remember their babies, but every time they get into their cars?
The King of Soup, Faithfool, and Baker, I’m so sorry for your loss. Your loved ones sounded like wonderful people, and I know they will never be forgotten.
I’d like to say I’m kind of on OP’s side, a little. My daughter had lots of qualities that should be remembered, but stopping traffic wasn’t one of them. She was young and brilliant and brave and beautiful, and that’s enough. She never wanted to make anyone angry, except maybe me, for my own edification
Thank you, Wallet. I really appreciate that. And I also would like to extend my sympathies again too.
It seems to me that hanging out on the side of a highway to construct a memorial for dead people will soon lead to people hanging out on the side of a highway to construct a memorial for dead people.