Monday, March 24, 2008

1, 2, Tie My Shoe?

I sat downtown today with my faithful hound, Lyra and read Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut. It was very satisfying and well written. It made me laugh and it reaffirmed my own Luddite point of view. It was forty one degrees outside and windy. My kept warm enough and got to talk to lots of folks.

Eventually Lyra howled at me, "Thomas Abraham Peppergrass, it is time for us to go!" So we walked East on Main street back towards Mount Jumbo and home. It was very sunny and excellent to be outside. Finally walking with the wind gave some relief from the hours, of hand biting breezes.

Lyra and I passed by the Missoula Children's Theater, and who should be coming out of it, but a real live child! She said to her pop, "One, Two, tie my shoe..."

"What happened to buckle my shoe?" I wondered aloud. I felt like something would be lost from this fine nation if, like record players, shoe buckles were completely forgotten. I didn't correct the lassie, but I did ponder what I had witnessed. I decided that the only course of action was to acquire some buckled shoes, and wear them around. Maybe a tricorn' hat. As I mused about my possible costume, another visitor to the theater left the parking lot.

This visitor was a red behemoth, with the capacity to haul an entire swing ensemble on its vast platform. The band composed of dandy-shirted, arm-banded old fashioned horn players would have had to update their style in order to match the vintage of the vehicle they rode in. Perhaps if they all had chrome instruments, black plastic jackets with fireball music notes shooting up the sleeves, mirror shades, and rocket boots would have sufficed to blend the appearence of the band with racing striped, molded, tasteless body of the beast in front of me. The truck was so tall, that the sunshine ricocheting off the roof would blind only the birds. It was red, the coolest color by all accounts, except for its sweet gray stripes like those on an electric badger's armored futuristic coat. It was so bulky that the little old lady inside appeared to be at its mercy as it rolled out through the narrow gap onto the one way street. Towering above its hood, were two gaping air intakes, presumably necessary for the jet engine which powered the thing at a whopping fourteen gallons to the mile, but what a mile.

I couldn't believe that the lady driving it looked perfectly serious! It wasn't like a group of highschoolers riding a limousine for the prom, that shout out the windows and laugh at themselves for the sheer novelty of it. Calmly as a Hell's Angel on a hog, she managed the machine with her sunglasses and hairdo adorning her like two parts of a puzzle, the only part of which that was missing, being a similarly dressed man to clutch onto from behind. But no wind touched her except that being spewed over the famously wasteful engine to warm her, without direct input from the actual sun.

As amazed as I was by this lumbering shit-car, I had to laugh out loud! It was almost like laughing at a funeral, I think, like how did this happen? How did someone come up with that thing and why did someone buy it? But then I got a hold of myself and looked around, a line of vehicles had formed behind the first as it pulled away. Pickup truck, after pickup truck, after pickup truck. Some were as big as the first. I watched one of them reverse out of a parking spot,and nearly get stuck like a couch in a stairwell because the parking lot wasn't designed to accomadate these things. It was designed to allow people to come see the theater, riding in vehicles, not on the backs of the usual suspects from the line-up in the police station after the leveling of Tokyo.

Here I was wishing I had buckles on my shoes and I stumbled on a Missoula Pickup Truck Society meeting.

"One person per truck, people. That's right. That's the way we like it. Keep it moving, now. Thats it."

Talk about tragedy of the commons. Why is it that even though I try so hard, everyone else is attempting to destroy what I work and live for? C'est la Vie.

4 comments:

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Darlene said...

Keep heart my friend...not EVERYONE is destroying what you love. You'll be happy to note that the New Haven branch of the Montpelier McCullough's is working toward a car-free commute. Consider how amazing it will be when the days are warm & long enough to Roller Blade commute! That's right....riding to work on my (that is, you're dad's old) Roller Blades. I did it on the warm days last week and I can't wait to cast off my gas guzzler. We're with you! Keep the faith in the Green Team.

Tommy Peppergrass said...

WOOOO GO TEAM! love ya.