Big City Local Action Weather

The Big City

Part 22 of 28

It doesn’t take a long time living in the Big City before you know certain truths that are so unambiguously true that at some level you already know it. Remember books like “Everything I Ever Knew I Learned On My Own” or something. The way I took it was that everyone already knows everything and that the ultimate cause of school, etc., is merely to bring out this innate knowledge. That was Plato, maybe, which if it’s true it's something at some level I’ve never forgotten. If only I’d known this or realized all my innate knowledge when it was time for the final test, I wouldn’t have ended up with a grade-point average equal to the population of the typical ghost town.

One of the most obvious truths in the Big City is this, that the most respected guys in town are meteorologists. I upchucked this innate knowledge one day while watching the news. I watched their demeanor, the way they constantly referred to their next report “in two minutes” with the “latest updates” of “life-threatening storms” and “critical information.” After a while of watching the news, that’s all I could focus on, how well-respected, all-powerful, and righteously situated these guys are. They’ve got it going on, they know they do, and they’re riding it all the way to the bank. They've got a rare thing happening for them, to be the most respected people in town and know it and deserve it.

And everyone plays favorites, which is critical for the stations. Because I’m new to the Big City I didn’t get a bit of guidance from Mom or Dad or Grandma on the best weather guys. I merely watched, liked their smile, their dress, the demeanor of various ones. Then in my private time I assimilated all the information and charted it out, the one I liked the absolute best. That’s the only one I watch now. And if he ever dies I’ll just have to look out the window and see what the weather is. But doing it that way it could be too late, since it takes me some time to get my bottom sat on the top step and inch my way to the basement. It’s a scary process, because some basement urchin could crawl in my pants if I’m too slow and bite the crap out of me and my precious privates, used mostly now only for the most innocent purposes.

But the weather’s a terrible thing to mess with, of course, so I'd have to pick someone. And hope the new guy's cut from the same cloth, or I might turn to trusted friends for their advice. I don’t want anyone too close to retirement, so age is a factor. But I don’t want too much of a newbie, because experience counts for a lot. I would probably cut corners on the auditioning and do a search for the highest rated, most respected, etc. My only hang-up on that would be the teaching I got as a kid not to follow crowds. Although crowds are wiser than my parents gave them credit for. If they’re stampeding a particular direction, there’s always a good reason. You can corrupt a few people, and that’s a crowd you don’t want to follow. But when the crowd’s in the millions, and they’ve survived every storm the Big City’s thrown against them, they didn’t just do it on their own. They had the help, the gracious assistance of meteorologists, and that’s good enough for me.

An Enormous Icestorm (Or Not)

I swear, I'm starting to think that ice can be downright dangerous! You try to walk on it and if you happen to make a mistake -- in an unguarded moment of carelessness -- you can go right down! Very slick stuff, ice is, a hazard, a public menace. But what can you say? Sure you hate it, but it's as natural as anything else. You get the right combination of moisture and temperature, and similar to those little trays in the freezer, you've got ice! They don't call it "the icebox" for nothing!

And wouldn't you know it, it's winter, and we're prone to experiencing it firsthand, nature at its worst, which has lulled us into a continual confidence vis-à-vis our legs by uprightness from warmer times being the norm, only to upend us when the cold comes to bear. Slip! You're down, with no undo button, and left to survey the possible damage: "Are my legs injured, did my hands get hurt, how's my all-important spine?" I've known people who've been terribly injured on the ice, then others (like myself) who've come through falls with almost miraculous deliverance.

One time I remember clearly was probably 35 years ago, when my feet went out from under me slick as snot, as we used to say. This was split-second stuff, whoosh! And I hit my head with some violence where I stood. It hurt like hell but shocked me worse, shaking me not just by the physical pain but with what it did to my normal breezy confidence. 'If that could happen as fast as that,' I must have thought, 'then, really, what confidence can I have?' The lesson stayed with me and I've been more careful since. The greatest part of it was I wasn't injured beyond the immediate pain. I shake my head and it's the normal rattle.

Today was the day we were dreading, an ice storm for the ages coming in. When I heard there would be ice build-up of a half inch, in my imagination that's the biggest half inch ever; I pictured it as something closer to three times that. Do I have a faulty imagination? I was never great with math. Or is it that I fear the possibilities of enormous ice so much that to be extra safe is to be extra careful, and as a reminder to magnify the predicament? Could be. I do lots of extraneous stuff, and careful redundancy is my middle name. I make backup copies of grocery lists in case the original is lost. Good thing I don't knit sweaters; they'd be so thick they'd last forever and suffocate you.

As it turned out, at least during the day and in town -- and it may have been worse in other places -- the ice storm was nothing much. Once I got out, inching my way to the car, and casting my ice melt upon the frozen waters, I realized it was nothing. I didn't have a problem in the world! The roads were great. I didn't see a single car in the ditch, whereas during a less-dreaded storm a couple weeks ago I saw two cars spin out in three seconds and wisely turned the other way. What it was like on the interstate, though, I can only imagine. Ice is always so much worse there, with maniac truckers flying by at 80 mph and throwing it on your windshield a foot thick if it's an inch!

I also didn't see anyone fall on the ice. Good for them, but bad for me. Couldn't rush over and do my good deed for the day, helping them up and issuing a heartfelt warning, "Be careful next time, stupid. Let me tell you what happened to me 35 years ago, and everything I learned from it..."

My Dreams of Open Carry

My dreams of open carry are coming true! And this is even one of those weird things I never thought would happen, like flying cars. I figured the Old West was gone and we'd never get it back.

This is true, that as a kid watching westerns, I always complained that they carried guns all the time and we couldn't. Our guns were hanging on a rack -- unlocked, mind you -- and we only took them down for hunting or cleaning or showing someone.

Parents didn't believe in safety as much then, which was OK, because we did all right. We had the run of the town. We played lots of war games, cowboys and indians, and killed each other all the time, only in our imagination. Even though we had guns, we never actually killed anyone. Although I remember having a grievance against the sheriff one time. All water under bridge...

I gave up all hope of open carry -- walking around with holsters, dangling guns down to your knees. Never thought I'd live to see it, but now... All praise and glory! They're back!

Frankly, I don't know how long it'll last. His term is only so long. Meaning, we need to groom future black presidents so we never have to go back to a ban. There's definite benefits to a generalized paranoia, which we're reaping now.

Only, I don't see any decent candidates being groomed. On the bright side, we might get a woman president for eight years. Of course that'd give our testosterone a workout, meaning open carry would be safe. Yet, it's all temporary. What we need is a constitutional amendment -- call it the Second Amendment Part B -- that presidents can only be black and/or women.

The worst case scenario for open carry is that we get another white man like Bush, especially like Bush. He had that whole ignorant good-old-boy thing going so strong there wasn't ever the slightest temptation to allow open carry. And the more dishonest he was -- we frankly didn't have time to plumb the depths -- the more people liked him. I still see various idiot assholes on Facebook pining for those supposedly "good old days" of a white male president, with absolutely no understanding of what it meant for open carry.

I personally haven't taken the gun plunge yet. The openness of open carry is still a little too primitive for my taste. If you kill someone you still have to account for it. I want it like the westerns. You do your killing, you have a drink and play cards undisputed. Or go upstairs to Diamond Lil's room and do whatever they did back then. Teach her a thing or two with your barrel.

I Miss Good Old Fashioned Danger

We live in safe times. There's an ad with a car going through town jumping and sliding down rails like a skateboard. With a disclaimer, possibly not necessary, warning us not to try it, that a car is not a skateboard; we repeat, a car is not a skateboard. Right now, I'm looking at the safety label on a toothbrush: "Insert brush into mouth with caution. Be careful not to swallow it."

Anyone else remember the old days when we had a lot of pure danger, when, frankly, we didn't care if people drove their cars like skateboards. I remember a guy in school who got his car stuck on top of the swing set and no one cared. We all just piled in the car and saw how long we could balance it without falling off and killing ourselves. Years later at reunions we still observe a moment of silence for those 15 poor souls.

Danger was an everyday thing. I think of old fashioned elevators, no gates, or a gate where a kid can lose his finger. The door opens and the elevator might be three stories down and you step into the void. I can barely stand getting into a modern elevator with all the safety features, too cushy. Yes, there's a phone to call for help. But it's just for show, the danger's so minimal.

Wow, my memory's going crazy! Fans without screens, sleds with sharp edges, dinosaurs roaming free. No safety standards. It wasn't uncommon to see guys with one leg, one arm, one eye, and even nothing, walking by, or struggling to do so the best they could. My grandpa used to tell me tales I could barely believe. He said it wasn't unusual for half his school to have the Black Plague. They blew their nose a lot and did their best. They treasured learning so much they just sat there and suffered.

Even today -- Hallelujah!, things haven't changed in some respects -- we still have danger. Barbed wire comes to mind. The nanny state still hasn't gotten around to putting little safety caps on each barb. You can prick yourself on one of those and bleed for hours. Doesn't feel so bad. You get some of that rust in your system, especially if an animal died somewhere nearby, and it hurts like hell, then everything starts locking up on you, there's bile everywhere, etc., it's a beautiful thing.

This would be a good sociological study for someone: Figuring the correlation between making society safer in external things things and the nature of Man vs Man violence. Of course you can guess my thoughts on that. Man vs man violence is way up, ironically, while we're making life safer. It could be there's something in us that wants that intrinsic danger to life. Or it could be that psychos and antisocial halfwits used to die earlier, before we had child safety caps and railings, meaning the rest of were spared. The weird thing about that would be: The more dangerous life was, the safer it was. However it was more dangerous to the ones who wanted to make it more dangerous for the rest of us.

It was an ecological balance -- very fragile -- that we've now tipped more toward danger the safer we've become. And, this is embarrassing, the danger in life that I claim to remember fondly is still there, only it's shifted to Man vs Man violence. So what's my complaint? I guess I still have a complaint: I much prefer losing a hand in a bad elevator to losing my life to a psycho. Personal responsibility was key, but this is the fly in the ointment, even back then it wasn't permissible to simply kill psychos; you had to wait for them to stumble over a land mine on the way to school, or something.

Looking back, I can't think of precisely how long it's been since the change came. But I believe we can peg it as coinciding with some asshole tampering with Tylenol bottles. Wasn't that it? I believe so. From there it was safety caps on everything, then little plastic wraps on the caps, then safety warnings. Now you can't do anything without robocops and nosy safety officers behind every pole to warn you. Ever notice all the parents with their kids on Halloween? Back in the day, my parents used those hours to catch up on romance, which is how I got brothers. That's why we had such large kindergartens, all those late July births.

But is life perfectly safe, aside from Man vs Man? As it turns out, there actually are exceptions, heh heh. Antifreeze comes with a safety cap, but no inner seal! So that's something to be thankful for. I don't know if it has a label warning you not to drink it. I personally wouldn't drink it. I love life and am not a psycho. But if some future mass-murdering psycho were to off himself with a shot of antifreeze and a good stiff Quaker State chaser... who's to object? In short, the more dangerous we keep life, the safer we'll all be.

Tips For Parking Lot Safety

No, this isn't just another boring post on "parking lot safety." You know the routine: "Parking is a privilege, not a right. Make sure you remember that, or you'll be circling the block forever."

No! I do not buy that particular line of pious bullshit. The only time I "agree" to it is on the driving exam every eight years when you have to agree to it to get your license renewal.

My own feeling on the subject, and I hope you agree with plain common sense as I see it: I have (and you have) just as much right to park as the next guy. No questions asked. But I do agree with one point of orthodoxy -- and you'd have to be a fool not to -- that we need to be responsible and maintain safety in these three areas: 1) Arriving; 2) Staying; and, 3) Leaving.

Arriving -- If someone else is already in the space I want, obviously I cannot, and should not, try to park there.

Staying -- It's important to lock your doors. Also to check your backseat when getting back into your car. Someone might be lying in wait. Which would usually be no one you want to deal with.

Leaving -- This is critical. I check behind the car to make sure I won't be running over anyone, especially a child. An adult needs to be more or less responsible, but a child is naturally senseless.

However, I do not check the undercarriage of the car. If someone is under there, clinging to the bottom of the car, I feel that I'm within my rights not to notice them. Who can reasonably expect it often enough to waste the time it would take every time to check? Similarly, if they've managed to open the hood, and crawl in on the motor, and there's no apparent sign of them, I'm simply going to start the car as normal and drive off. If they get ground to death in the gears, or cremated from the extreme heat, I have to say, being realistic, that's their problem.

Maintain safety in your parking space. But also let reason be your guide.