Rare, Collectible, & Otherwise

Tag: driving

Shake, Rattle, and Roll on.

I made it back. More than an hour later, I am still bumping up and down after traveling the Tulsa streets. If you haven’t been out, here is a recap:

The soft, fluffy snow is gone. In its place is something like linoleum or kitchen tile – hard as a bathtub and slippery as the soapy shower. Getting out of the neighborhood is a smooth slide until the intersection at the arterial street, where snow plows have constructed a foot high barrier reef. Expecting something better along Memorial? Think again.

It appears that some jokester buried enough bricks under the snow to simulate cobblestones, with pre-configured potholes. I have not driven such a rough road since I was searching for a downed airplane in the rugged Jack Fork mountains in southeastern Oklahoma. I broke the oil pan on the Monte Carlo in that adventure.

This morning, I traversed streets from Yale to Garnett, from 51st to 31st. That seven mile excursion took about an hour and fifteen minutes, round-trip. The car was being jacked around so badly I was afraid the suspension might just snap off, even at my slow pace. Naturally, I was tailgated by some Jeep-pickup-SUV-types who, no doubt, thought my speed was a ridiculous affront to their need for wheel-churning action, but lacked the appropriate anatomy to pass.

The ultimate irony was encountering several snow plows driving the arteries – with the blade UP! Here’s a suggestion: lower that thing and the results will increase dramatically. Sure, they’re enroute to their assigned plow-zone, but what would it hurt to scrape down some of the jagged ice-balls that cover every street in Tulsa?

A week’s business has been lost at the Bookstore, but that’s not my biggest worry. I keep thinking about the poor souls that intended to stop by before the blizzard, but stocked up on bread and milk instead, and are now on the warm side of the 2011 Blizzard, reduced to reading the back of the milk carton and the ingredients on the bread bag.

Tell Me Why…

My friend Jim used to whoooosh his arms to one side in a sweeping movement while saying, “you gotta let it go, man…” Haven’t mastered his Zen technique yet, which is apparent when I find myself wondering things like:

Why do drivers back into parking spaces? Bank robbers, I understand. That whole quick getaway thing. Loading or unloading the trunk. I get that. But backing into your own driveway or in front of the diner? They even back in at QuickTrip. It’s just as difficult, traffic-wise, backing in as backing out. I parked in the south-40 at Reasor’s this morning but when I came out there were two cars in that single acre of parking.

A guy backed in to the space next to me. I squeezed inside, so I wouldn’t bang my door against his. He wouldn’t have noticed. He was trying to eat a burger in four bites. Big burger. Half of bite #1 was still hanging on the outside waiting for mouth-vacancy. Made me remember holding a sugar cube in front of a horse. Flump, flump, got it!

Burgers make us defy logic. Nefarious. I stopped at Burger King for a snack. They call their little burger a Whopper Junior, but needless to say, it’s not a Whopper. It’s barely a Whipper. It’s on the dollar menu. Price? $1.35

Go figure.

Some of you will remember when the regular McDonald’s burger (the super-flat thing with a squirt o’ mustard and ketchup, tiny diced onions and a couple of pickles) was fifteen cents. And to think: we had to save up the money to eat out…

The Good Old Days are only as good as our memories:

Is Your Name Famous?