Birthdays, Bird Parties, Skype, and Sam and Dave

1. One of my former students, who currently holds the record for being the oldest who stays in touch with me, turned 46 yesterday. Egads.

*slaps him and his friends, DCHS class of '82, for making me feel ANCIENT* Mike's in the white shirt at right -----:)

Happy Birthday, Mike.

2. Over the last few days, the Atlanta weather makes me love living in the South.

We have had cooler mornings and evenings.

Near dusk, for the last week, David and I sat on the deck and watched the hummingbirds party around their feeders. They are so bold and full of vigor that they buzz our heads like we're in the Pacific theater with P-38 Lightnings and Grumman Wildcats.

At times, the other bird feeders boost ten or fifteen birds of varying species at a time -- cardinals, wood-peckers, sparrows, finches, wrens, and the occasional warbler, flitting to the feeder from the trees and back like sixth grade girls around the snack table at their first dance.

3. We take Tallulah and Keats, who are both indoor cats, to the deck with us. Their heads do 180s as they try to catch the air acts. When the birds fly low enough or close enough, they swat at them with their de-clawed selves. It's like the birds know they can't catch them and tease them with their proximity.

When we bring them in at dark, Tallulah and Keats plop on the hard woods, totally wiped out, like they have just done something exhausting.

4. The other night I talked with my nephew in Houston, my niece in Pittsburgh, and my soon to be nephew-in-law in California on Skype -- all at the same time --- when they said something, the border on the outside of their posted pictures pulsated. .. well, Nora, my niece, and I had pictures -- they just had coat hanger heads. LOL

Hmm. They both might be coat hanger heads. Symbolic?

Eh. You would have to know Skpe to know what that means. Anyway, it was cool. I have no idea of what we talked about other than spray tans, car alarms, and knitted plants -- but I concentrated on the conversation, and they multi-tasked. I could hear the clicking of their keyboards. I called it Family Conference Call About Nothing.

BTW: The Internet never sleeps which reminds me of the title of a Neil Young album -- Rusts Never Sleeps --------- Neil Young -- singing "Heart of Gold," his signature song.

5. David and I watch Memphis Beat, a cop show set in Memphis [duh!] and starring Jason Lee, of Almost Famous and more recently My Name is Earl. The best thing about the show is the music -- on the last show we watched, they featured --- "I Thank You" by Sam and Dave.

What a great song... take a listen. I downloaded it to my I-Pod.

Young bloggers -- you need to get in touch with Sam and Dave.

Just sayin'.

That's all I got.

Skip One. Throw One.

At 5:45 am this morning, I heard the distinct sound of the car that contains the man or woman who throws our newspaper. I usually am awake at that time, my body clock trained from years of rousing early to teach school. The paper carrier car circles the cul-de-sac and throws two papers to the four possible houses, hitting the sidewalks sometimes, sometimes barely making the curb, and then purrs off to throw wherever else.

Throwing papers.

Brings back memories.

Since I have written about my family before, you know that I am one of four children who grew up on the south side of Atlanta. I am the youngest.

My parents, who grew up during the Great Depression, believed not only in hard work, but in tithing and saving money. Our finances being tight, my parents drilled these two things into us as well as giving us an awareness of what things cost.

As we got older and took part-time jobs, our parents insisted that we tithe 10 percent and put the rest into a savings account, which they monitored. I don't remember being allowed to spend any money that I made. I, of course, might just be projecting a little Charles Dickens.

My parents expected each of us to save enough money to pay for our last year of college. Who knew what that would cost at that seemingly far-off time, so they had us right where they wanted -- in their pockets. LOL

In the early 60s, my brothers helped the family finances by throwing the afternoon Atlanta paper, then known as the Atlanta Journal in the neighborhood. In those days, we called them neighborhoods -- as we had never heard of that word "subdivision."

Our neighborhood was Sylvan Hills, an area of modest homes built in the post WW2 years, that lay west of I-85 and north of an area known as East Point, which had in its city limits --Hartsfield-Atlanta Airport -- and was so bustling that it had two runways.

Our home street was Oana, and the street that ran parallel to Oana was Bader; we sometimes identified our classmates to our parents by the street on which they lived.

"Oh, he lives on Bader, or Lisbon, or Brewer," we'd say.

In fact, it was boys from Bader who first enticed my brothers to help with their paper routes, as these Bader brothers had the "market" on the business but were renown for their extreme laziness. At times, they paid a nickel to my childhood friend Marcie and me to throw the newspapers on our street.

Marcie and I thought it was the coolest thing ever to don the canvas bag, that held the papers, over our shoulders and head down the street and carefully "deliver" the papers to the subscribers. We walked up to each porch and placed the paper neatly and flatly on the top. We thought we were awesome looking with our bags and papers.

Even though I can't remember their names now, I remember that the brothers from Bader were hulking, brooding boys with little interest in school, who intimidated younger kids and ruled boys their own age. They openly smoked on their front porch and played their transistor radios late into the night, the glow of their cigarettes burning from the dark porch and their raucous laughter heard up and down the street. They were not dangerous, but they had an rough edge, unknown but recognized from my innocent perspective.

The Bader brothers began to pay my brothers on a regular basis to throw papers on "that street," and that street could be one of many -- as their domain ran four or five routes.

The Atlanta Journal's afternoon route carriers ran a paper drop about two miles away. Here was a central location where the papers could be picked up by boys who threw them . They operated out of a store front, and according to my brother, it could be a place that provoked strong language and the occasional fist fight. After all, we're dealing with boys. At one point, one of the Bader brothers tried to pick a fight with my brother, a fight he refused, but remembered that those guys "simply did not like him."

The Bader brothers ruled that place with their posturing and veteran knowledge of being paper carriers. I'm sure that an adult actually was in charge, but somehow he fades into the background in the presence of the Brothers Bader and all their brawn and bravado.

The first route my brothers had was a circle of apartments, located about a mile from home. In the afternoon after school, they rode their bicycles to the "Paper Office" as they deemed it, and then with the papers piled high in a wire basket on the front of their bikes, they rode the mile to the route, teetering and tottering under their weight.

As my brother noted, "the papers piled so high that I couldn't see over them, and the weight would send the bike at sharp lefts or rights without warning." My brothers had many scrapes and bruises from running up on curbs or into bushes from trying to maneuver the bikes. At home, they fixed chains and flats on a regular basis.

Most days the paper could be folded for tossing, but at least two days a week they could not -- Wednesdays, the food section, and Sundays when the two Atlanta papers combined for one delivery in the morning.

Once to the route, they parked their bikes, packed the papers in a canvas bags, and proceeded to throw the papers. The apartments were a less desirable route as collecting the 52 cents a week from the subscribers more difficult as the transient tenants moved or worked odd hours. At one time, they made 1.5 cents per paper they delivered.

*sigh*

Each paper boy was given extra papers to sell if they could, and on November, 22, 1963, the day that John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, the newspapers were two and half hours late to the paper office, and people stopped my brothers in the street from their cars to buy the extra copies. For once, they sold out. A lot of days, however, they brought the extra papers home, and they piled up on the porch to be taken out on garbage days.

Eventually, my brothers picked up two more routes and because of their responsible natures became valued carriers --- they grew to know their subscribers -- and even took care to place the paper in between the door and the screen to keep it from getting wet on rainy days, an extra that drew them tips or Christmas gifts. They knew who was older, had dogs, and the houses where less than kinder peers lived who riled them for being "paper boys," and that they gauged to avoid if possible.

They also told tales of bad tosses -- ones that went over houses or landed in gutters. It was those times that those "extra" papers came in handy. LOL

In high school and sitting in class toward the end of the day, my brother gazed out the window to note the weather and how it would affect his delivery. At one time, he had as many as 100 houses on his route, and that task lay ahead of him each afternoon of every day of his young adolescence. Sometimes, he got home as late as six or seven, and if he was much later, my worried mother would get in the car to look for him on his route. Sometimes, he was late because of the weather, and perhaps other times, he may have gotten started late or just dawdled somewhere too long.

On Sundays, when the Atlanta Journal and Constitution put out one, thick paper, my brother had to do morning delivery. Daddy rose early to drive him to the paper office, and then to drive him on his route in order to get them out in a timely manner. They would come back from those mornings, have breakfast, and then we would all go to church. As far as I know, he did this every Sunday my brothers had the routes.

During Sundays of inclement weather, my sister and I would also help with the paper route. If it was cold, or raining, we were awakened before five, sleepy and grumpy, and blindly walk the route. One Sunday, the whole family helped because it was four below zero, and we had had an ice storm. We slipped and slid down driveways and across streets to put papers on porches with the sound of the car wheels grinding for traction behind us.

My brothers, who, of course, had the route memorized, made it simple for my sister and me to remember which houses were subscribers by saying to us before the street: "Skip one. Throw one. Skip two. Throw three. Skip one. Throw one. Skip One. Throw three."

They also recognized his subscribers in other places and would tell us -- "Oh yeah, that's 814 Melrose or 229 Langston." They knew folks by their addresses. LOL

My younger brother had the paper route for six years. He made about a 100 dollars a month, and by the time he was a sophomore in high school, had more money saved than any of his friends. Unfortunately, his paper route kept him out of high school sports, but as he said, "[it also] kept him out of trouble." His best friend lived on his route, and he would stop most days and shoot baskets with him in his yard for twenty or thirty minutes, and then he would be on his way.

It was a seven day a week job --- and he was thrilled one summer when the newspaper union went on strike, and he "got to go to the pool in the afternoon." But when we went on vacation, which was not that often, the route had to be covered.

I'm amazed now when I look back on what they did. Having a paper route was a less than glamorous job, and the money had to be collected door to door once a month. My harried mother, from time to time, harassed them to "collect" on their routes, as it was a less than a pleasant job to knock on doors and asked to be paid.

In April of 1968 on the evening after Martin Luther King, Jr. had been assassinated in Memphis, my brother went out to collect on his route. He remembered being greeted with anger, fear, and mixed emotions, as some on his route refused to open their doors to him -- many seemed concerned with the fall out from King's death in the changing race relations in Atlanta in the last years of the 60s. Surprisingly enough, Atlanta only reacted with grief and mourning as the violence came from cities like Chicago, Baltimore, and Washington DC. My brother said, "it was a weird evening."

At the end of my brother's tenure as paper boy, some of the more difficult aspects changed. No longer was there a paper house, but a woman with a car who delivered the papers to the street corners, and he picked them up there to deliver. The days of carrying the mounds of paper on the front of his bike long distances was over.

Within another year, the job would become one done by more adults and done by car.

When my siblings and I gather together on holidays and talk of our childhood and the things we collectively remember, the paper route always comes up, and we giggle about "skip one, throw one, skip two, throw three" and the boys who lived on Bader whom we can't remember their names. We groan about how much we hated those Sunday mornings when we all got up early to throw papers, and how we were less than happy delivers of the Sunday news.

Recently, my oldest brother used Google maps to refresh his memory on the streets of our childhood -- Brandywine, Perkerson, Brewer, Sylvan Place, Lisbon, and of course, Bader. Hard to believe that all those years with a paper route that those street names are not forever etched in his memory.

Somehow, I believe, that the work ethic associated with my brothers' paper route affected us all in a positive way. I think it made us good employees with a loyalty and a responsibility to whatever job we held. Maybe? Maybe not.

Regardless, it made some rather, lasting memories, mostly good ones --- even though the real details are lost... as well as the job of "paper boy."

:)

ETA: I had these two great photos to include, but I couldn't get them big enough to post.

*cries* I hate that I am so inept at it.

ETA 2: I am also aware of the length of this -- thanks to my readers who could sustain it. :)

Alice in Exile

Piers Paul Read's 2004 historical fiction novel, Alice in Exile, combines all of the elements of a good read.

Eh, no pun intended.

Opening in 1913 in London, the novel sets its background during WW1, its aftermath, and the Russian Revolution that followed. Read takes the time to set the stage for even the most un-informed of history students and anyone, with his layman approach, can follow the complicated world politics of the time.

Alice Fry, the heroine, considers herself a new woman, perhaps a suffragette, but most certainty feels herself free from the moral constraints of the time. Her father, a progressive publisher, operates an independent book house and allows his partner the lead on what they publish including a pamphlet on women and their sexuality.

One night at a party, Fry meets Edward Cobb, a British soldier recently returned from Africa. Cobb sees a future in politics, and since he's the oldest son of a baron, is probably a shoe-in. The intelligent, yet radical and forward-thinking, Fry grabs his attention and attraction, and the two head straight into a serious love affair. Before long, they fall in love.

When Cobb asks Fry to marry him, she hesitates as she believed herself not in need of marriage, but her serious relationship with him and his earnestness causes her to accept. Before the two can announce their engagement formally, authorities arrest Fry's father on obscenity charges, and the scandal pushes Cobb to break his engagement.

Rescued by a Russian baron in need of a governess, Fry leaves England, and when Baron Rettenburg discovers that she is pregnant with Cobb's child, he encourages her to change her name and assume the identity of a French widow, whose military husband was killed in Morocco. Using this alias, Fry makes a life for herself on the estate of the Russian baron.

Meanwhile, Cobb makes a "good" marriage, but when the hostilities of Europe end in war, Cobb re-enlists and loses himself on the battlefields of WW1. After the horror of his experiences, he returns to England -- different.

Read's novel packs it all -- war, love, political and social commentary --but the real strenght is that he manages to balance a well-researched historical novel with a surprising love story.

Forked?

David and I have been in the mountains, and when we came home, tree men were in our yard taking down two pines.

Tree men. LOL

We actually didn't know they were coming --- they said they'd call, but David didn't hear his cell, and they were already on their way.

Anyway, we opened the front door, and on the stoop were two empty boxes, previously housing plastic forks, and a threatening note. Or at least, it seems like a threat: "DO NOT CLEAN UP ANY FORKS."

What do you think blog readers?


Kara?

Emilee?

Jamie?

You girls have got to get jobs, boyfriends, or arrested because you should not be out late at night carousing, trespassing, and leaving evidence.

I checked the note closely -- I know it's you -- I'd know your bad writing anywhere. I suffered through it/ read it for thirty-six weeks back in '08 and '09.

*tee hee*

Meanwhile, CSI-Marietta dusted the note for fingerprints, and since all of you gals have priors, I'm sure that one of those black Chevrolet Suburbans will be pulling up to your door any minute now to arrest you for being lame.

Yep. Lame.







BTW: The tree guys said when they arrived early this afternoon to take down the trees, they saw the forks in the ground and didn't intend to "disturb it. Since they didn't know what it was."

Bwhahahaha.

I'm sure they thought it was sacred.

Oh, and Emilee? "Carousing " is a Level F vocab word.

Just sayin'.

Sippican Cottage: Dad, How Do You Spell Upponna?

I loved this blog. While I am working on an essay, yes, an essay for a job, yes a job, I am focused on that -- and on my weekend trip to the mountains. I took a break today and did a little blog reading, and I found this at Faith, Fiction, and Friends. Enjoy. I did.



Sippican Cottage: Dad, How Do You Spell Upponna?

Travels with Edie: Field Trip 1

When Edie retired at the end of the last school year, we vowed that we would take day trips together to places we have always wanted to go but haven't. Because we worked in a job that meant when we were off, so were all the school-children in America, and who wants to go places at a time when we have to step over little people and knock them down to get in line for ice-cream?

On Tuesday, Edie and I went to Cartersville to see the Booth Western Art Museum, and embark on our first field trip.

When Edie presented the idea, I said, "Never heard of it."

Edie: Me either, but I have heard it's good.
Me: Count me in. I'm retired.

After following directions provided by the Booth Museum's internet site, I parked my car at the Tabernacle Baptist Church (I love when the word "tabernacle" is in the name of a church!) across the street from the museum, but turned the wrong way, mis-guided by a sign on a back of a red brick building that read "Bartow Museum of History." Not sure why I thought that said "Booth Museum of Cowboy Art," but I followed the alley beside it and arrived on a small downtown street, totally in the wrong place.

Was it because I was halfway paying attention to the name of the museum?

*shrugs*

As I looked up and around me like a lost tourist, I heard Edie yell my name. I turned around a couple of times, expecting her to be right beside me, but she was up a ways and in front of the museum. It did take me a moment to find her since I was convinced that I was somehow standing in the right spot.

LOL

The Booth Western Art Museum, a commanding structure of white stone, sits atop a small rise behind a tall wrought black iron fence, and its contemporary design makes it a little obtrusive among Cartersville's careful preservation of older buildings in the same vicinity. Some of the buildings around the museum date back to the early twentieth century. Like most small towns now, Cartersville understands the draw of refurbishing and renovating old buildings to turn them into offices, galleries, shops, or restaurants.

As we approach the building, Edie says, "I don't know why we came. I don't even like cowboys."

Me: LOL

We admire the building; it's beautifully designed, well-kept, and huge. Obviously, its benefactor has deep pockets.

I think that might be Mr. Booth.

We pay our ten dollar admission and receive a map of the facility from a pleasant, young lady, and we take a turn to the left for no apparent reason. We have to start somewhere.

The main level offers two galleries, a cafe, a store, and the "Orientation Theater," which runs a fifteen minute movie every twenty minutes titled "The American West."

Me: Look, we can watch a movie. Bonus points!
Edie looks at her watch: It starts again in eleven minutes. Let's go to this part first.

She points to the small sculptures in the atrium.

Me: Just keep up with the time. We don't want to miss it. LOL
Edie: I think, we could just catch it on its next loop.
Me: This is why I will go on field trips with you. You're smart.

We perused the sculptures, which were very good, but apparently by all the same sculptor. Not that that is a bad thing or anything.

Edie: Mmm. Lots of cowboys. Did I tell you that I'm just not that in to them?
Me: Yes, you did. I like cowboys. Wingate used to do a unit on them when she taught American history. I find them very interesting.
Edie: I'm all ready ready for the Presidential letters.

We saw the time neared for the movie so we headed to the Orientation Theater. As we opened the door to the theater, an elderly couple made their way down the steps, the only viewers of the previous show.

Elderly man: Hope you get a good seat.
Us: LOL

The theater had no seats, just backless covered risers. Edie and I watched the fifteen minute movie all by ourselves. We sat on the back row, our backs up against the wall like a couple of teenagers skipping school, and propped our feet on the riser in front of us.

When the film began to roll, Edie quipped, "This looks like a movie for school."
Me: I'd hate for us to learn something.

"The American West" narrated mostly about what was in the museum -- and there was very little "new" information about the West. It had an annoying artist's pallet, I think, at the bottom that kept both of us trying to figure out what it was. We, of course, made comments throughout cause that's what we do.

BTW: We could never be quiet at faculty meetings or Power Point presentations during teacher in-services. We should have been separated by the principal. I also thought that I should have my own show like Mystery Science Theater, but whatever.

Edie: Well, okay. That was that.
Me: Let's go the "War is Hell" gallery. That sounds promising.

"War is Hell" gallery featured contemporary Civil War art. Good stuff -- but I don't think of that as "western," but I'm not a curator.

We crossed paths with a handful of other museum visitors in there, some surreptitiously taking photographs, even though the "Help Us Protect the Art" rules listed "Please No Photographs except in Sagebrush Ranch" as number 2, right after, "Please Don't Touch."

*shrugs*

I would break rule number 2 myself when I got upstairs and came across a horse made from stuff my mother used to throw away.

*looks around*

I thought a museum guard watched me take the picture, but he was wax. Neither Edie or I knew that until we got up close, but I blame it on being married. I don't know what was her excuse.

*twirls*

When we came out of the "War is Hell" gallery, we almost ran into a contingent of retirees getting a museum tour. Apparently, their sagacious guide thought they were right off the bus from the local elementary school as she was using a white board to draw lariats and cowboy hats -- at one point she made a sound like a horse gallop and then proceeded to ask them "Do you know what that is?"

Edie and I stifled the giggles and pealed off in the opposite direction.

We headed up a stair case to the upper level, past a another pretty impressive sculpture, and six more galleries. These galleries ranged (no pun intended) from western illustration and movie posters to portraits, artwork of cowboys, and depictions of Americans on the move. The most jaw dropping item we saw ----an original 1865 stagecoach.

The stagecoach, restored and made of wood, metal, and leather, seemed unreal. Apparently, it spent its days running in between Kansas and Colorado.

Me: I wouldn't even want to do that on an airplane. I just can't imagine.

Edie and I circled the stagecoach like the Comanche, noting the small size of the seats, the skinny wooden wheels, the fact that it carried nine people -- astounded, we admired its condition and preservation. We laughed because we assumed it was a luxury model, since the passengers sat on leather seats and had foot stools.

We also saw a "medium" of art, paper casting. The artist, Allen Eckman, had several pieces in the gallery, but the one that amazed me the most was of the Plains Indians. The artwork, encased in Plexiglas about the size of a large fish aquarium, included twelve human figures, several horses, a dog, a campfire, trees, a cave -- all cut from paper.. in magnificent detail.

I followed the rules, and I didn't take a picture.

I was tempted though. A man, who saw us admiring it, told us all about that particular kind of art, but we had no idea what he was talking about as he used words like "porous," "wood molds," and "calicum carbonate."

Edie and I nodded politely, but after he was gone, both admitted we had "no idea what he was talking about."

Me: It's the way I got through Trignometry in high school. Nodding like I understood.

It was on this level of the museum that we saw a horse made out of --- well, let's just say I saw one of my mother's pewter platters.

*giggles*

I guess the exhibit that held our attention the most was the Presidential Gallery. In this room of dark wood, low lighting, and solemnity were original one-page signed Presidential letters and a photograph of each President. Included were four silly facts like -- "first president to ride in a car" or "only president who didn't have a dog in the White House." I found those little tid-bits quite humorous. They also reminded me of the fun-facts that Wingate used to pepper her American history lectures.

*hugs and waves to Wingate*

Each signed letter had beside it a typed version ---since on most of them, the ink was faded and words were illegible. These letters somehow made them seem so human as they responded to strange requests, answered questions, or wrote short thank you notes. I found their penmanship alone fascinating -- :)

Only the current president had no letter, even though the museum noted that he had been notified.

I'm sure he's busy.

:)

Edie and I ended our tour of the Booth Western Art Museum with those letters. We were hungry, or we may have spent some more time there. Or not.

As we headed out, we did check out the museum store which was full of the usual -- mugs, key-chains, post-cards, and miniature wooden cowboys.

I wasn't even tempted to buy something as a joke. Usually silly stuff like that ends up in someone's Christmas stocking.

When we exited, the Georgia sun blasted hotly, and the air felt muggy. I regretted that I left my sunglasses in the car. We headed over to Appalachian Grill for lunch, and as the speaker system blasted blue grass, Edie and I grinned over our French fries and looked forward to September and Field Trip 2.

Blog readers: Oh, goody, I can't wait.
Me: What? Did I hear sarcasm?
Edie: I still don't like cowboys.

Interstate Musings

When I travel the Interstate, thank you, Dwight Eisenhower, I have to admit that I'm fascinated by many things, but today, for some reason, it was these two:

1. the remnants of tires scattered on the peripheral

2. tractor trailers

As I buzzed up Interstate 75 North today to meet Edie in Cartersville to visit the world famous Booth Western Art Museum, an earlier accident during rush hour slowed me down for about six miles. In that time, putz-ing along at under twenty miles an hour, I casually perused the Interstate, its scenes, and denizens.

1. Have you ever noticed how many pieces of tires there are in the grass, against the guard rails, hanging from trees, along the medians, and in the road itself? Pieces of black rubber, some the size of small snakes, others as large as a 2x4, slung all kinds of places ... are there that many blow-outs and flat-tires? Are people littering rubber?

Harvey: Look, Mabel, I got this piece of tire that I need to get rid of.
Mabel: Just toss it, Harvey.

Harvey buzzes down the window of his Mercury Marquis and lets it fly.

Interesting.

I wonder if its because it's been so hot?

Next time, you are on the road, blog readers, would you check out the number of pieces of rubber and tire litter there is on the road and get back to me?

I'd appreciate it. I just want to make sure that it wasn't just a theory I have about this particular stretch of I-75.

2. Tractor trailers always remind me of dinosaurs, most notably the apatosaurus.

BTW: Just so you know, I had to look that up -- apatosaurus -- as a child, I referred to that extinct animal as the Sinclair dinosaur -- thanks to their gas sign logo, or as "Dino" [pronounced "Deeno" by Fred], because of the Flintstones -- I'm pretty sure I have never known the scientific name.

As I recall, Dino of the Flintstones' fame was never more than the size of a Great Dane. I always thought it was harsh of Fred to flip dino burgers on the grill. Seems kind of insensitive to me...

*shrugs*

Any who.....

When I see an overturned tractor trailer, the sight reminds me of a huge animal, lying dead on its side -- its wheels still and stuck up in the air, stiff like rigor-mortis has settled, sometimes its contents strewn along the highway like an overturned laundry basket or spilled groceries.

It's a sobering sight, always.. as something that large, once mechanical, but now, inert, perhaps at one point out-of-control and now fallen ... its damage done. Over.

Another tractor trailer sight that I always avoid examining too closely are those that transport chickens or cows. Somehow these are loathsome. Sad.

These chicken trailers usually pack the chickens in small crates that are stacked fifteen or twenty high and as many across. Crammed tight, their stark white, feathers fly out the back as the truck pushes against the wind down the road .... their red beaks at all kinds of awkward angles, and their plump selves indistinguishable one from another. I don't know why it gets me -- but it does.. I can't think too much about it -- I can't think about chicken. Period.

The cow trailers are even more difficult to view. Those animals seem packed too close to each other, their moony, sad eyes peering out, kind of frightened,[ but with cows it is kind of hard to know -- since they can do some staring no matter where they are], from the confines of the trailer. Their large bodies bounce and sway to the terrain of the highway --- on their way somewhere ...

I feel that wherever it is, it's not a bovine vacation ... with verdant, green pastures and good-looking stud bulls serving alfalfa-brome, timothy grass drinks complete with little umbrellas.


*sigh*

Pause.

Clears head of images.

The size of the tractor trailer fascinates me the most, enormous and hulking, and full of mystery and intrigue as I never know what they are hauling. Pickles? Mattresses? Illegal immigrants? Big screen televisions? I know sometimes they are labeled -- but many times the cabs are just white and secretive.

One time at a restaurant, I overheard one guy telling another about a tractor trailer accident. The truck slammed into a abutment of a highway overpass at sixty miles per hour. The trailer hauled grain, and even though the driver lived, thousands of pieces of grain had to be tweezered from his body as the impact turned them into projectiles.

That story stuck with me. [no pun intended]. I remember listening unashamedly to it and wishing to ask questions.

To be behind the wheel of something that large that has a gas pedal must be, I dunno, scary? powerful? a huge responsibility?

The view alone from a truck driver's perspective, high above everyone else, allows the driver to see all kinds of things -- some perhaps not so pleasant, but also a perspective that brings him into the world of all people, both good and bad, ugly and beautiful.

When I traveled Interstate 80 through southern Wyoming, the wide open spaces, which allowed a vista of miles, amazed me. I could see the tractor trailers far away in the distance on the interstate, perhaps two or three miles, and they appeared like Matchbox toys on a child's toy track. Their huge cabs, painted bright reds and blues, lined up like a convoy or the cars of a train. Somehow, it seemed surreal.

Was all this musing worthy of a blog? Probably not -- but as I viewed these tractor trailers today, I wondered about the reasons for these added details:

"We only hire safe drivers"

mud flaps

those little diamond shaped plastic things on the side or the back doors

Air-Ride equipped

"Owned and operated by Sylvia and Doug Wyatt, Enterprise, AL"

Studio sleeper

"Fire extinguisher inside"

the double cab ones

"Humpin' to Please"

the necessity of 53' brandished on the side

the loudness of the horn

those huge red and blue coils

all those axles

.. as well as the drivers, only identifiable by their left arm.

How many tractor trailers are on the Interstate? I saw at least a 100 in my 15 mile drive up I-75.

After creeping along, I finally passed the scene of the accident, mostly cleared of the after effects (no emergency vehicles), but just enough left to show its physical impact.

The guard rail next to Lake Allatoona was torn asunder. Long black marks scarred the aluminum, and tire marks twenty or so car lengths long marred the right lane. Ahead about forty feet sat a tractor trailer, pushed to the side, with its cab sheered in half: the front sitting all kattywompus, one wheel missing, its engine nosed to the ground and the back half exposing and spewing its contents, indeterminate, but large.. and looking vulnerable.

Blog readers: Uh, I'm not sure why I just read all that.
Me: I'm not sure why I posted it.

*hums Styx's "Too much time on my hands"*