Feel My Pain, People. Feel My Pain!
"Give a man a free hand and he'll run it all over you."
- Mae West
"Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed."
- Mark Twain
I've gone through something I have never experienced in Mississippi before. If someone would have told me that this would happen to me, I would have laughed at them on the outside, yet become distraught. Please, bear with me. This is going to be difficult for me to write.
One of the things that I’ve been doing lately is taking my great aunt, my Aunt Timothy, to cancer treatments in another town. (Yes, I’m going to say it—BECAUSE OUR FREAKING SMALL TOWN IS TOO SMALL! I HATE SMALL TOWNS! SCREAMING! SCREAMING!) On the way back, we went about our ritual: going to Baskin Robbins so she can get two scoops of ice cream (yes, I’ve stopped getting ice cream because I weigh .9 pounds more than I can bear—see “My Friend. My Foe. My Gut.” for further explanation), and then heading back (controlling my screaming) to the small town where I live.
We were driving along, and before you know it, it was right there, in front of our faces in the middle of nowhere, on one side of a four-lane, interstate style highway. I nearly screamed.
A traffic jam.
What in the Sam Hill is going on? I was on the back end of at least two miles of backed up traffic! I, along with several truckers and drivers of numerous vehicles, discovered that there was a funereal procession of nearly thirty cars that turned onto the highway before us; stopping “rush hour” traffic. We would have been zipping along after the last car came onto the highway, but the line of cars decided to break away from the one-lane formation. There were some passengers that lost their way; one of which nearly ran me off the road as an attempt to get back in. I would have let that big ole honking SUV get in. Stupid driver.
I will never look at life the same way again.
Did I mention that I hate southern small towns? Well, I do, dad gum it.
Labels: My Writing
posted by Evolution of gina at 7/07/2006 09:26:00 PM
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Sorry, but I can't agree with you on this one, my dear. I love the tradition of stopping traffic for funerals. It's a sign of respect that has sadly all but disappeared.
When my husband's uncle was buried in a fairly good sized city in Alabama a few years ago, we passed the high school football players, working out on the practice field.
They all stopped, took off their helmets, and stood at attention until the whole funeral procession went by. Most impressive. Those young men have been taught some manners!!
So no, I can't agree with you. It can be irritating to try to adjust to the slower pace of life in the rural South, but there are many virtues there that hurrying will miss.
BV
Oh, Dirty Butter, I don't mind that at all! It actually was hilarious to be stopped! When I realized what I was in the middle of, I busted up laughing; not about the funeral, but about the traffic jam!
Please do not misunderstand the post for nothing more than being stunned about the traffic jam practically in the middle of nowhere!
It's good to know that people, even young people, would stop for a funeral nowadays.
Oh, sistawoman! I understand
MORE than you'll ever know!
Try living in the middle of the
desert sometime (with "beings
from another world"...alledgedly)!
Now, THAT'S cause for a REAL
traffic jam! *LOL*
Hugs, blessings, & a giggle,
~~Life
OK, I'll undo the fuss, then. I missed the whole point, and for that I apologize.
I know when we first moved to this little rural town, it bothered me no end that I couldn't just go to the grocery store, buy the bread, and get back home. Nooooo, I had to stop and TALK to people. It was quite a culture shock. And I only moved 45 minutes away from where I was born!!!
PS: Do you think you could add the text BLOG VILLAGE voting link to your LINKS section?? I sure would like to be voting for you!!
Gina ... I lived in a small northern village. Not much different I think. We lived on a 'main' street ... so did the fire chief and several of his volunteer firemen. It was also on the way to the local cemetery. It seems so incongruous to have of all things a traffic jam where there are so few people.
Of course the traffic jams caused by the frogs hopping on the roads after a rainstorm .... THOUSANDS of them ... were the funniest yet!
Ok, I can stop laughing now. I've seen those pictures of all the frogs on the roads ..... I needed that belly laugh.
I used to call Dover, Delaware (my summer vacation spot for years) "Mayberry RFD" since it seemed so doggone small to me, but I think you've got me beat.
The traffic jam in Dover was always due to the choo-choo going through town.
Jali, we don't even have a train go through our town, but there's a train track just as you please!
Maybe there is a train that needs to go through PoDunk, but I haven't heard it.
Rosemary