I got behind the wheel and drove the rig for awhile the other day. It really
gives you new respect for 18-wheelers and how much room they need for braking.
It's not *just* about hogging the whole road :)
Oklahoma! http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048445/ is full of personality-less ice
cube/glass front buildings they must get at the McBuilding Store. None of the
money they collect in tolls seems to go on the roads, though. Their "turnpike"
(a two-lane stretch of cement ribboned with patches of tar) is the roughest
going imaginable. We shook, rattled, and rolled so much I thought the airbags
would deploy. Despite that, the speed limit was 75 mph with 50 being the
minimum.
Favorite paradoxes:
1. The MidFirst Bank (which one is it??)
2. Now entering Canadian County (not likely)
3. DUI School (for? or against?)
4. The Spirit Bank (you show up one day to make a withdrawal...and the place is
just...gone....!)
The scenery is all buffalo and horses and dirt devils swirling in the dusty
fields as you pass through one Shit Kicker, USA town after another (as Nicky
would say), with "24-Hour Strip Show FREE PEEPS! "and all the signs favoring
"Frontier This" and "Frontier That" and signs for Arby's proclaiming free high
speed internet, and what surely has to be completely un-PC signs for the
Cherokee Trading Post with little cartoon Pocahonti (the plural of Pocahontas?)
figures smoke signalling you towards 100,000 Gifts! Moosehide and deerhide!
The closer you get to Texas, the more likely you are to see a dead armadillo in
the road (the armored car of the animal kingdom), with ads on the radio telling
y'all where to go to getcher car fixed, and no area codes mentioned in the phone
numbers.
Keighley made pink glasses frames out of pipe cleaners in the back seat and
perked up, interested, when the Dollar General semi went by. (Me: Look! A truck
full o' crap! Keighley: Yay! A truck full o' crap!) Photos attached of
Keighley's summer eyewear collection, the Dollar General truck as it descends
down the road into Flatsville, and a crookedy water tower (no, the picture is
not crooked -- the WATER TOWER is).
I did notice when the radio played an old song (Always Something There To Remind
Me) that when Keighley recognized it as the Hecht's theme song and said so, that
the first way I "heard" her say it was the "Hex Song" -- context is everything.
No wonder it's so hard to learn a foreign language.
Americana/Sign Watch:
1. The Hobby Lobby
2. The Harry Hines Trading Company (does that sound disreputable or what??
What'll y'all gimme for my hairy hinds???)
3. Statuary World (for all your patio/fireplace needs)
4. RATTLESNAKES EXIT NOW (to buy them? or are they speaking to slimy types
telling them to exit the roadway before they bring their reptilian ways into
Texas? because the next sign is.....)
5. Don't Mess With Texas (with the fine posted for littering)
6. FREE 72-oz Steak! (Good Lord! Who could eat four pounds of steak???)
Getting ready to leave for Santa Fe this morning. I wonder how much ersatz
"Indian" (the feather, not the dot) lore they will foist upon the unsuspecting
driver today? I could almost accept the obnoxious Paleface Advertising Co., if
they would just pave the damned roads!
Maybe the uneven paving is deliberate...maybe that's how you're supposed to mix
your margaritas on the drive home from work...?