I, Who Can't, . .

Parade, Hudson, N.Y. (2)

P1010277.JPG, originally uploaded by The Earl of Steinway.

Parade, Hudson, N.Y.

P1010276.JPG, originally uploaded by The Earl of Steinway.

Recently I went on a drive, as part of my learning to drive experience, up to Hudson, N.Y. I hadn't been there in a decade and wanted to see this gentrification I had heard about. It turned out to be more and less than I what I had imagined. Really more of a quantification, really. We walked up and down Warren St, but couldn't find a single place where we wanted to get lunch. Most of the shops and restaurants, except for a couple of very run-of-the-mill looking cafes were almost empty, and this on a Saturday. It led us to wonder- what do people do in the country? Sit around there houses? Kayak?
All of a sudden a parade broke out, and just as suddenly ended. As you can see by the look on this kid's face, it all wasn't what it seemed it should be.

Father and Memorial

Father and Memorial, originally uploaded by The Earl of Steinway.

    Here's a photo of my dad, standing in front of a civil war memorial in Salisubry, VT. About an hour after this photo was taken I had what I would like to remember as my finest yet moment of driving- one of those "dead is not for the acumen of the driver" moments.
    We were coming around a tight curve in the curvy and narrow route 199. All of a sudden I saw, blocking most my lane, a stalled pick-up, improbably wide and demanding immediate decisive action. I swerved to the left, expecting to see a cement truck in the on-coming lane. Thankfully there was nothing except some non-threatening (and immobile) road-kill. I returned to my lane and continued on, thankful for the skill that I have gained in my hours at the wheel.
    A brush with death, or a routine driving event?
    A random photo or a forecast of the thin line that seperates us from the departed?
    I am not the one to decide.
    Another hour and I grazed the corner of the fence where they keep the  stray shopping carts at the local Hannaford's supermarket.
    "Consider that your first accident!" My father said.

Life-Long Learning (continued)

I used to regularly treat myself to breakfast at the counter of a diner on Northern Boulevard in Queens. I would give you the name of the diner, but I don't want you to think that I am recommending it as a good place to eat, breakfast or any other meal. The recommending factor for me was its closeness to my apartment, the heavy air conditioning, and the fact that I could eat a breakfast of epic proportions without my fellow diners judging my needs or capacity. I was, however, open to judgement reagrding my mental occupation.

The waitress told me, while she was giving me a few of those little thimble-sized cups of cream, with a tone of advice, "Don't think so much."

She was right, in a way, not at that moment, because I was, as I recall, in the middle of some extremely vital mental calculations, but in a more general sense she was right that I tend to overthink things. Perhaps she thought that I had little to ponder outside of my bagel scrambled egss and pancake and five to six cups of coffee breakfast. In fact I was thinking loads of extraneous thoughts. She truly had no idea. And sitting at the counter of this diner, I wasn't endangering anyone with my thoughts.

Driving the stretch of 9W between the Home Depot and Lowe's is another matter. I find that it class for mental acuteness. And in fact, my mind doesn't want to wander beyond the matter at hand, but the matter at hand- driving- is an absorbing concept.

First of all it is something that I have been thinking about for a long time in the abstract, or as an observer. Second, it is the subject of a recurring dream that is significant only to a non-driver. IN the dream I have to drive. Third there are some aspects of driving that I find hard to get my mind around.

The relationship between the gas and the brake. Before I drove I thought of one as go and the other as stop. But in fact, the gas pedal makes the car go, and the brake acts as a foil to the gas. It impedes what the gas pedal is trying to do. But so does gravity and inertia. It is possible to hit the gas pedal and then just coast until the car comes to a stop, on its own, without once involving the brake. Driving involves a skillful manipulation of this relationship between gas and brake. Add to this the interation of the road- is it ascending or descending? Slippery? Dry? Turning a corner? Slippery uphill turn? All these conditions require different actions.

And to make it all worse, you can't think. Like the gas pedal, you have to just go.