More Road Trip Observations

I previously posted here about a recent trip to a marble quarry in Georgia (I know, I still have not finished that thread but promise to do so here within a few weeks).

Wanted to add some additional road tripping observations to the 3 previously made in a blog post here (pink houses, crosses large and small, and music).  So here are some more observations:

1. Roadside kitties.  We all have seen those intent cats hunting in the grass right beside the interstate, right?  Ever notice how the preponderance of such kitties are black, or largely so, in color?  At least that’s the stereotype I have.

2. Paralyzed Veterans of America.  The radio carried a poignant commercial for this organization.  I cannot comment upon whether, as charities go, this charity is a good one in terms of a favorable admin-cost-to-program-cost ratio.  What I do want to observe is my utter disgust at the fact that paralyzed veterans need an advocacy group to lobby for their rights, programs, and services.  When a service member is injured, they deserve lifelong treatment for that injury.  100%.  By the government that sent them into harm's way. As the Earth Bound Misfit said here:

If we, as a nation, are unwilling to shoulder the financial burden of caring for our military retirees and veterans, then this is what we should do: Stop making so many veterans by getting into wars. When the shooting starts, there are going to be maimed veterans who will need care for the next eighty years. If that cost is unacceptable to the politicians, then stop sending men and women off to fight. No fighting, no combat veterans to care for-- that should be a simple enough equation for even most politicians to grasp.

3. The Dude.  On I-81 in VA, I saw a semi with the name on the cab, “Dude Smith Trucking.”  The name struck me, as I am not particularly into nicknames (previous post here).  Dude seems not to have a web site, but his Facebook page is here. 

My burning question is whether all of Dude’s friends called him Dude for so long that it just became the name he goes by.  Or scarier yet, did he get up one day and just decide, “You know, I want to be called Dude from now on”? 

See, the nickname “Dude” has already been claimed, forever, by Jeff Bridges in The Big Lebowski.  This joker in Virginia is an impostor.

The official Big Lebowski trailer here.  A curse-filled (and funnier) clip is here.

 

Road Trips, Pink Houses..and Ultrarunning

[photo by Gary]

Made a road trip last week to Georgia and back over 2 days, some 650 miles each way.  More later on the reason for the trip (it’s all good) but what I wanted to post about was some road tripping observations.

1.  Pink House.  Photo above is of the old pink marble home of the company president of the quarry I went to.  Of course, the Mellencamp song applies (here, clip from Farm Aid 2008, in case the embed does not work):

2.  Crosses, big and small.  I saw several huge Christian crosses at churches, a couple of which were identical.  So I guess there’s now a company somewhere whose niche this is.  Oh, and I pronounce it “nitch,” not “neesh” like the talking heads on the radio do.  And tons--too many--of small crosses where people were killed in traffic accidents.

A friend of mine lost his daughter in an auto accident, and in a quiet moment I asked him whether he was drawn to the spot of her death.  He said no, it had no special draw for him...but he did like to go to the cemetery and talk to his daughter at her grave.  He told me this softly, but not apologetically or sheepishly. 

I don’t know what I’d do.  I get the idea of the roadside cross, and I get the cemetery thing as well.  Both do not compute on a purely scientific basis, but whatever helps you get thru the loss of a loved one is a good thing—I’m not going to judge, as I’ve not walked in those shoes.

3  Lots of good music.  The most coincidental was probably the John Mellencamp tune above, which actually played shortly before I saw and photographed the real pink marble house.  Also in the truck's console I found an old compilation cassette tape, a birthday gift to me from by buddy Don, way back in 1984.

That's 28 years ago!  And it still played!  Of all the mixed tunes on the tape, the one I particularly loved all over again was Rosalita by Bruce Springsteen, (here in case embed fails):



The Boss sure gets cooking in this tune!  And does anyone else also think that his style is very reminiscent of Van Morrison?...or maybe it's the reverse?

At any rate, I love road trips, and this was a wonderful journey.  My Dad was an over-the-road trucker back in the 1950s, and a proud member of the Teamster's union.  I like to joke that I inherited what I affectionately refer to as the "Teamster gene."

Maybe that's what compels me to run vast distances on foot?