The Elysian Fields

Saw a billboard asking if I knew who really felt the impact of me driving without my seatbelt, and stuck on the crumpled steering wheel was a picture of a rather young, rather photogenic couple.

Now, I'm not sure why that couple would be concerned, but I have to say their concern is needless because my belt was on. Then I got to thinking, maybe that sign was aimed at the newly licensed youth, and that couple was allegedly their mom & dad.

From there, I remembered Ozzy's anti-drinking tune 'Suicide Solution' and how it led to a few court dates back in the eighties for allegedly causing kids to kill themselves, and I'm thinking to myself: this is great; we've moved on from blaming English rockstars like Ozzy or Judas Priest for the death of young and stupid Americans, and now we'll be able to blame billboards and ad councils and government agencies. After all, if Ozzy's taken to task for advising that drinking yourself to an early grave is stupid, a billboard that just asks you to think about who will cry after you've offed yourself by crashing while unbelted has to be even more at fault.

So, which side of the road do we drive on in this country?

A bit of set-up first: A bridge, fairly narrow for its length. One lane in each direction, room on the side for a mouse to scurry along, if it's careful and walks a straight line. Anything larger isn't likely to make it across if there is traffic. The bridge peaks in the center. The time was about 8:30pm, so it was rather dark out. Rain is threatening, but not there yet.

Friday night, after poetry - in which a most excellent discussion on religion occurred - I was driving along Race Street, and up onto the bridge over the Lehigh. When I saw the headlights in my lane, I slowed. Then I stopped. The car continued coming towards me as I honked. At the last minute, the driver swerved into his lane. I had the distinct impression that he was ticked off at me for being in the correct lane. I'm not sure if he was drunk, thought it was a one-way in his direction, or both.

Mere moments later, rain now pouring down, I sat at a red light. It turned green, and I proceeded across the intersection. At the other end of the intersection were three lanes - I was in the one with an arrow pointing straight ahead; on my right was a right turn only lane that just opened up, and on my left, was a left turn only lane that continued from the other side of the intersection. The left-turn only lane was occupied, and, in the cross-traffic, a car stopped in their right turn only lane with his signal. As I approached, he took the turn, about twenty feet off my starboard bow. And that would have been fine had he needed to take another right turn, and went from one right turn lane to another. But he didn't. Nearly scraping my bumper, and causing me to once again use horn and brakes, he moved into my lane, and across into the left turn only lane.

Later, I had a chance to test the anti-lock brakes, and narrowly avoided an SUV that stopped suddenly - that, had something untoward happened, would have been my fault of course. Despite the brakes making a very odd noise, and a bit of sliding, there was no impact, and, had there been more chance of one (in other words, closer/faster/stopped quicker) I was already aimed out of the way, and could have kept going. Still and all, it capped off a wonderful evening of driving.

I narrowly avoided a mass-ticket-trap - I think only 2 out of the 4 officers were actively writing out tickets when I went by. How, you may wonder, did I avoid it? Was it due to the stealthy wink-wink of the VW in the opposing lane, with the conspiratorially friendly driver who flashed high beams repeatedly to all of us oncoming potential victims? Perhaps it was due to the fact that every year since I've been driving this route I know that the speed limit on this road is aggressively enforced - it may only be one day a year, but when the entire police force of at least one township appears for the festivities, you know they Mean Serious Business and are intending to Write Many Tickets.

For some reason, that threat works well, not that I don't restrict my speed to a reasonably safe level anyway, but on this particular road I am particularly mindful of exactly what particular part of the dial the needle points. I have only been passed twice on its narrow, no-passing-zone confines, but I have had many a red-faced driver pressed up against my bumper as we navigated that stretch of road - indeed, all the times I can think of complaining about being tailgated, Indian Trail Creek Head Thingie With Many Names I Can Never Remember Road Street or Whatever is the setting. It is narrow, has frequent obstacles, and a posted 40mph limit. 50 is comfortable, although there are stretches where one could go faster, one of which is where the speed trap lieth, for obvious reasons. Chief among those reasons is a large section off to the side of the road where 3 police cruisers and 1 police SUV might sit, just out of the way, with room for 4 or more victims to idle and fume whilst tickets are being authored.

Naturally, just downroad from that, I had Mr. I'm Important in his Mercedes or BMW or Lexus, who really took a greater interest in what my bumper looked like than I would have preferred. How quick they forget, especially when chatting on their Britney Spears headset-equipped cellphone. He came to my attention in one of four passing zones on the extended section of that road - as he zipped past a handful of other suckers motorists stuck behind little-ole'-10mph-over-the-speed-limit me.

Really burned him that I held to that 10 rule throughout the slower 35mph section, and I saw him veer toward the double-yellow on more than one occasion. However, in those last two passing zones (he probably passed 1-9 other cars in the very first section, just around the corner from the speed trap) he made no move to pass, so perhaps he was content. Maybe he just is that lobster-red color naturally. It really showed well against his white car. Perhaps if he had watched the news earlier in the day - or the night before - he would have learned of that tragic BMW-Mercedes-Lexus street race in East Greenbush, where one racer literally went out in flames. Perhaps he thinks his leadfoot fully encases him, so that he won't be harmed should someone else hit him (I am fairly confident that such folks never consider the possibility that they might be the ones to cause an accident, but I may be wrong.)

In our case, it all ended well: as soon as we hit two lanes, he veered around, passed me on the newly created right, got half a car length ahead, and turned into a driveway of a business - his, I would guess. He seemed so very self-important.

The biplanes seemed to have buzzed to closure - today was the first morning that I haven't seen them; yesterday, both were sighted.

I had to make way for a herd of deer this morning - I saw one going across the road two houses down from ours, and I slowed as a half dozen others walked slowly out in front of me. Two or three others stayed behind, eyeing me cautiously, and waited until I had passed before crossing. One can only hope that they looked both ways first.

The forsythia are in full bloom along my entire commute, but the ones in my yard - still just young twigs - aren't quite so obvious. Another day or two, and they should be a bit more so.

Saucer magnolias are getting ready to bloom. They seem to be quite a popular tree along Route 248. They're standouts at this time of year, up until their petals drop and carpet the area around them.

In a rather rare occurrence, I was not cut off a single time on the drive in. Not sure what to make of it, but I'm expecting the Road will play catch up on a future ride.