Growing up in the Texas Panhandle your perception of what is old and historic are skewed rather uniquely.  Oh sure, as kids you read the history books and did your daily lessons about Columbus, the Magna Carta, and the guys that dreamed the dream and forged the ideas of having a country where self-reliance was your ticket to prosperity.  But all that was a bit disconnected for someone that never ventured farther than Oklahoma to visit family during summer vacation.  In my little West Texas town the first permanent structure, a brick house, was not built until around 1930.  That was the standard for 'old' for as far as you could see in any direction on the compass.  Keep in mind that is pretty far, for in these parts of the high plains you had to do little more than stand on the second strand of a barbed-wire fence and see the curve of the earth.  Ancient history that was real to us, something we could see and touch, was limited to some ruins of dwellings built out of mud, known as Adobe Walls.

A trading post established in 1843, Adobe Walls can't really be called ancient by the standard definition which uses the Roman Empire as an example of what is ancient.  But it was our ancient, our most distant connection to the past.  Imagine my amazement later when, as an adult my work took me through all parts of Europe, Asia and Israel.  Everywhere I looked there was ancient.  Heck, most of those guys I worked with in Europe did not even call something 'old' unless it had been around more than 400 years.  They thought nothing more of living and working in these old buildings than I did about a sub-division built to accommodate the coming baby-boom of post-WWII America.

Following work, I drug up my family and moved to the Deep South.  Now while many people might think of someone from Texas as Southern, it just isn't so.  There was a familiarity to the culture of North Georgia, but it was definitely not Texas or Oklahoma.  And this place was way more 'historic' than anything we were accustomed to.

So where am I going with this?  You've indulged me so far but there needed to be a little perspective to go with the rest of what I write today.

An adjustment for Cyndee and I living in the metropolis of Atlanta was more than a cultural shift, it was also dealing with traffic.  When we moved to Georgia in the late 80's Atlanta had a metro area population of about 2 million.  Today that number is about 5 million.  What is important to understand about this is that the road system that the Atlanta of the 2000's was built on, was on the roads of the 80's and the roads of the 80's are the same roads of the 1800's.  Now if these were based on some kind of planning or forethought, then maybe it would be okay.  But no, pre and post-Civil War Atlanta had little more than game trails that turned into footpaths that turned into wagon roads.  Everything meanders through the woods to get you to one of a gagillion places to cross water.  Modernization of the road system for this part of the country meant throwing some asphalt on those game trails and call it a highway.  These people have never met a square intersection, full-width lane or a shoulder.  Nope, the road ENDS at the white stripe on the edge.  Nothing but a ditch lined with trees going one way and an embankment with rocks jutting out going the other way.  Dropping a tire off the edge, even at low speed, can make for a bad day.

Watching people drive around here is like watching bumper cars at the carnival.  We've spent the last 20+ years duckin'-n-dodgin' trying not to become a casualty of the culture.  Well, it caught up with me this week.  While making a parts run to retrieve a thermostat for an errant refrigerator I was on one of those game trails that pass for a highway.  And as usual, making lunges forward for a couple thousand feet and then stop to wait on traffic to clear coming from the other way so somebody in front of me could make a left turn.  With no shoulders and lanes barely wide enough for one car, there was no going around the right of someone and keep traffic moving.  Everybody has to stop.

But in today's age of distracted driving not everybody keeps up with what is going on in front of them and,,, bing-bang-boom; you have yourself a multi-car wreck.  That was me this week.  I could not dodge this one.  I was sitting dead-still behind someone making a left.  Had already been thirty seconds and there was no break in the traffic coming from the other way.  With my F-550 truck (aka Big Gulp) I was contemplating weather I would drag high-center if I went to the ditch to go around on the right.  But right in the middle of me sizing up the situation I feel a jolt from behind.

A quick look in the mirror and I barely see the roof-line of some imported something-or-another cross-over.  And very close behind that was the originator of the jolt; a chromed-up F-150 driven by what is now a dazed-looking teenager.  On contemplation though, he may always look dazed.  All I know is that cross-over import is accordion'd between two pickups.  The front end mostly under my class A hitch and the back end wearing the imprint of a blue oval.

Okay, time to go to the ditch and get out of the road before this little party gets any bigger.  Luckily I did have clearance, not so for the days-old Mazda (the lady said she just bought it this week) or the F-150.  The fire department showed up and started blocking the lanes and let one side go at time while the cops investigated the accident.

The Mazda was wrinkled up from end to end but drivable.  The F-150 had heavy front end damage and left on a tow truck.  The kid driving the truck left in an ambulance after complaining of chest pain associated with the seat belt keeping his head out of the windshield.

 

Have you ever heard the story about one guy walks up to another guy who's face looked like hamburger and the first guy says; "Oh, your face, what happened?"  And the second guy says: "If you think this looks bad, you ought to see the other guys hands!"  If that Mazda is the second guy's face, then my truck is the other guy's hands.  At first glance you can't tell anything has happened to Big Gulp, you have to look close to see the bent power port for the trailer brakes and the slight deflection of the bumper.  That class A hitch took the brunt of the impact and did a number on the Mazda while protecting the truck.  But as slight as it appears, it looks like it is going to be a thousand dollar repair based on the estimates I have so far.

 



Getting out of this metroplex lifestyle can't come soon enough.  It gets harder every day not to jump the gun on the planned retirement date.  But Cyndee and I both have commitments to fill, we are going to see it through.