A Summer Drive in Ohio


Here's the way it all started: My Bride is on vacation on the West Coast of These United States, and I've got a day off with no plans. So I decided to go to Cuyahoga Falls. The long way. You know, see the sights on this glorious (and rare) sunny Ohio summer day. Get a look at the Amish and Mennonite farms along the way. Look at the cows in their pastures and the corn in the fields.

So I did.

But before I could get out of the Youngstown area, I was driving along a two lane roadway in the Cornersburg area. Two lanes. I was going 35 in a 35 zone. I don't know why. I'm just like that. 35 in a 35 sounds right and proper to me. In my rear view mirror, I see a silver blur approaching at an alarming rate of speed. Frankly, I had nowhere to go, and there was nothing could I do, so I just waited for the impact. At the last possible moment, the sliver blur panic-braked, missing the back of my car by mere inches, nose dipping precipitiously. He tail-gated me at mere inches for about a half mile or so, gassing his car to get even closer regularly. Attempting, I think, to intimidade me into pulling off the road, or into speeding up. Intimidated I was not.

Like I said, I had nowhere to go. So I just kept going 35 in a 35. I still don't know why. Just seems proper to a rule-oriented guy like me.

Soon, the roadway became a two-lane road and the silver Ford Explorer (as it now been identified) bolted to the right, passed in a flash, and the driver flipped me the bird on the way by.  Flipped ME the bird!!

If you know me, you know what happened next. For those of you who don't, I'll tell you:

I pulled in behind the son-of-a-bitch and put my foot to the floor, letting the 32 valve Northstar breathe a little. The Explorer ried to lose me, but, well, I've got a 32 valve Northstar under the hood. He abruptly turned left into a parking lot, nearly losing control of the Explorer, and I calmly drove on.

Here's what this dip-shit didn't know—when he was tail-gating me, it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, and when he flipped me off, all I saw was red. If he had rolled his Explorer while trying to escape my wrath not only would I not have felt bad, I would have figured that I'd done the community a service ridding the planet once and for of all of his presence.

What's really despicable about his type is that they're cowards—flipping me off as he drove by. What a chicken-shit.

I didn't get a look at the driver, but I know the Explorer. Maybe I'll see him again.

The rest of the drive was wonderful.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Very Simple Request

In the late 1970s (that would be during the Carter administration and THAT gas crisis), I drove a Datsun 1200 for a while.   It was a good, small, simple car, and I could afford it even though I had virtually no money. As I recall, it had 12 or 13 inch wheels, no power anything, a four cylinder engine, and a four speed manual transmission.   It was light weight with no amenities.   None.   It had an AM only radio and a tinny little speaker.   No air conditioning either—can you imagine?   No AIR??   On the freeway, when larger cars would pass, the jet wash would buffet the car slightly after the larger car passed.   It was orange, and it routinely got 35 to 50 MPG.   40 to 50 on the freeway and 35 to 45 around town.   When the tires wore out, it was about as expensive as putting new tires on your bicycle.   If it needed brakes, it was about as expensive as putting brakes on your bicycle.   Did I just repeat myself? Here's w...
Read more

Karma

I see that the Marlin's Scott Cousins has been placed on the 15 day disabled list with a "lower back strain", and has been replaced on their active roster by Hanley Ramirez.  And that the Marlins are 3-18 since leaving San Francisco. Karma's a bitch.
Read more

For Love of the Game

  OK then. Baseball is finally over for my beloved Giants. Thank goodness. This leadership pair of Farhan Zaidi and Gabe Kapler has created a baseball team and method that’s just pitiful. It’s painful to watch. And boring. Tedious. A struggle. Never knowing from day to day who is going to be on the club as players or where they might be in the batting order or what positions they might play. No stars. The way Kapler handles pitchers makes it even worse. One result of the inconstancy in player positions is that the Giants lead all of baseball in errors committed in an era of lower error rates in baseball. I can’t be the only one who sees the problem and the source of said problem. It’s no puzzle why the Giants find it impossible to sign truly first rate talent. I’m a big fan of Mike Yastrzemski and Brandon Crawford, but, other than that…….Who would want to subject themselves to that nonsense, anyhow? It’s no wonder that the ballpark is habitually empty, or nearly so. ...
Read more