Driving back from the thumb
Published 7:38 am Thursday, September 24, 2015
Harrison Winkle lives in the house on the corner, with the big wrap-around front porch. Since his retirement, a little over a year ago, Harry and his closest friends have taken over the venerated veranda as their outdoor man-cave and command center. On any given afternoon, passersby are likely to see a disorderly gathering of retired, semi-retired, and I-didn’t-want-to-go-into-work-today-so-I-called-in-sick gentlemen — (and that is being generous with the description).
Last Monday, Harry and Jimmy were the lone afternoon porch perchers. September was in the air — the afternoon was warm, but not like the sweltering August heat of just a few weeks prior. Both men were tipping back on the rear feet of their wicker chairs, with feet propped up on the porch rail, enjoying what was left of summer’s ebb — and a glass or two of lemonade with special fixins.
The shadows were beginning to stretch and the conversation had slowed to nonexistent. Neither Harry nor Jimmy could tolerate too much quiet on a sunny afternoon. Something needed to be said.
“Had to drive to the Thumb over the weekend,” mumbled Harry as a lackluster means of stirring up the tranquility.
“Why did you do that?” queried Jimmy in a tone that indicated that he really didn’t care, but felt obligated to respond.
“I told you. I had to.” There was little logic in Harry’s explanation — but a little was better than none at all. “There sure are some aggravating folks out there on the interstates.”
“Of course there are,” snorted Jimmy in his usual Jimmy way of snorting. “That’s why they built the interstate highway system — so aggravating people had a place to congregate.” Jimmy was pleased with himself for using the word “congregate” correctly.
“I got behind four blue haired old women, going fifty miles an hour, in the left lane — all crammed into a Mini-Cooper,” groused Harry in a cantankerous tone that was usually reserved for Jimmy’s tirades. “I hate Mini-Coopers.”
Usually, Jimmy is the kind of guy that isn’t happy unless he has something completely outrageous to complain about.
Case in Point: Jimmy despises the Eastern Time Zone — not the people in it — just the fact that they are hurling through space about an hour earlier than they should be.
He knows he is this kind of guy and sees little reason to be anything but this kind of guy. However, on this early autumn afternoon, he found it quite surprising to hear the customarily blasé Harry complaining about things that sounded like something Jimmy should be complaining about. Jimmy was slightly concerned about this little wrinkle in the, otherwise neatly pressed, space/time continuum.
“Fifty miles an hour?” coughed Jimmy in mock disgust. “In the fast lane, no less!” His sarcasm was barely hidden. “You couldn’t just drive around them?”
A logical question, even
for Jimmy.
“Why should I have to drive around them? I was already going fast in the fast lane. They were going too slow in the fast lane. They should have had to move over to the right lane and gone slow over there.”
“So what did you do?” asked Jimmy in the same I-really-don’t-care tone from earlier (because he really just didn’t care — still).
“I pulled up on their tail and stuck to them like glue — figured they’d get the point and pull over to the right.”
“How did that turn out?” Jimmy asked, once more, in a tone that should have ended the conversation right then and there.
“Those women were so busy yakking, they never did see me behind them. I must have followed them for 20 miles. They never did look up, pull over, or even bother giving me a single digit salute.”
“Ssssoooo…let me get this straight,” reasoned the frequently unreasonable Jimmy, “You drove 50 miles an hour, for 20 miles, behind a car full of blue haired women because you didn’t think you should have to be the one to change lanes?”
“I told you. They were in a Mini-Cooper and I don’t like Mini-Coopers,” grunted Harry as he readjusted his feet on the porch rail. “Something else I don’t like…”
“Now what?” sighed Jimmy in his most obvious, seriously-I-just-don’t care, tone of voice.
“I don’t like that I-69 is labeled as east/west from Port Huron to Lansing and then north/south from Lansing to Evansville. Why did they do that? Did they even once stop to think that the poor folks in Flint might get confused?”
“That must have been a long drive back from the Thumb,” sighed Jimmy – not caring one little bit.
Larry Wilson is a mostly lifelong resident of Niles. His optimistic “glass full to overflowing” view of life shapes his writing. His essays stem from experiences, compilations and recollections from friends and family. Wilson touts himself as “a dubiously licensed teller of tall tales, sworn to uphold the precept of ‘It’s my story; that’s the way I’m telling it.’” He can be reached at wflw@hotmail.com.