Drink wine, my darling, and stop chattering. - The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
If you don't like my peaches
Don't you shake my tree. -- Sitting on Top of the World, Doc Watson
Morning will come early in suburbia. Mi Madre and I are loading up and heading east on Ohio State Route 32, winding through Eastern Ohio to the West Virginia border. Somewhere around Charleston, we'll pick up I-64, which will take us all most of the way through Virginia and back to Norfolk... still top of my list as the single most unpleasant, unfriendly and curse-ed place I have ever been to.
The sheer shittiness of Norfolk is salvaged by the presence my one and only lovely daughter, Stella.
Not my old car. This actually looks much nicer.
Add to that the fact that we won't be staying IN Norfolk proper. Rather, we'll be staying at Virginia Beach... a place I have positive memories of. The last time I was in Virginia beach was the summer of 2001, when I spent a month or so camping around Chesapeake Bay and visiting the kid.
I drove there in my primer orange Subaru. It leaked oil and almost overheated driving through West Virginia. The two back quarter panels were in the process of rusting off. The exhaust pope and muffler were gone and it sounded like a tank. There was no radio. The back two doors were fused shut and one of the back windows was permanently rolled down. The heat didn't work unless I kicked the blower motor, and sometimes I had to hit the alternator with a hammer in order to get it to start. I loved that car. I loved camping along the south side of Chesapeake Bay. I loved that Stella got to camp with me on the weekends and that I got to see her most everyday when I was there.
This trip will be nice because the kid's on Spring Break, and will actually have time to hang out. The only real downer about this trip is that I will, once again, not be able to meet The Boyfriend. This, I must admit, I'm really quite disappointed about. Because although I am the genitor and pater primo, I don't get to meet the boyfriends.... since I am the non-parentis pater, she doesn't live with me and hasn't since her mother and I split up. This means I don't get to meet (scare) the boyfriends -- which, as far as I'm concerned, is a parental right.
Unless, of course, we extend out stay there by a day... and then... and then... maybe... I might get to meet some kid who I know, without even meeting, isn't anywhere near good enough.
Hey... at least I'm honest about it.
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O'er all things but thyself I gave thee power, /And my own will.... - Percy Bysshe Shelley Prometheus Unbound
I want to play music when I want, write a song if I want or watch a baseball game if I want.
-- John Lee Hooker
Although I have lived in and around Cincinnati off and on for years I have never before been downtown for Opening Day. I'd heard there was always a parade and that it had long been something of an unofficial holiday for the city; so naturally, this intrigued me. The last time I'd been near downtown when the city was actually letting it's tightly curled hair down was the last time I went to RiverFest (now a wholly owned subsidiary of Proctor and Gamble) ... which was probably the last year they sold beer. The year after, the city went "family friendly" and restricted the sale and consumption of booze... which of course, meant all the people who drink and who also have kids stayed home, watched the fireworks on television, and drank for a lot less money. Keep in mind, however, that Cincinnati has a history of hammering down on anything that isn't WASPY enough to pass... unless they figure they can make a buck off it.*
Baseball has long been thought of as America's game... though to some people it does look an awful lot like the English sport Cricket.
The Cincinnati Red Stockings/
Early Cricket Batter. I sort of like the hats.
And in spite of its history of problems -- from racism in the early days to the more recent steroid abuse problems and everything in between... not to mention the evil wrought on the game by the New York Yankees (Curse their Name!) -- people -- baseball fans, at any rate -- still think of it that way.
I remember when my Dad stopped watching baseball. He never forgave them for the 1985 strike. It lasted 7 weeks, between June and August; the 25 games that weren't played ended up being made up later in the season. From his perspective, professional athletes had no excuse to squawk about how much money they made. (The strike actually had more to do with the sixteenth player problem tied to free agency and the reserve clause.**)
I suspect that the disruption pissed him off more than anything, though, and like a lot of kids who grew up playing baseball, he couldn't understand why people bitched when they got paid to do something a lot people dream about doing.
As for myself, I was never particularly good at baseball. I was never particularly good at any sport, really... which I suspect was something of a disappointment for the old man, who, of his two sons, ended up with not a one who exhibited more than a glancing interest in playing a sport.
But over the years I've grown into a sports fan. And while the sun rises and sets on football season for me, the love of baseball has grown on me. And in Cincinnati, home to one of the oldest teams in baseball, Opening Day is more than the first day of the season. It's a celebration for a city that would rather do anything but celebrate.
My plan was to check out the parade. Affording a ticket to the game was out of the question; and while I still had friends in the city, the ones who might possibly have tickets wouldn't have any spares, and the ones who didn't couldn't afford them anyway. But I figured I could go downtown, take in the insanity, and then retreat back to the burbs where I'm crashing in relative obscurity at my Madre's condominium home.
It was a plan.
I took the 24 bus downtown, which, because the burbs is considered Zone 2, cost me $2.65 instead of the Zone 1 fare of $1.70. (Both had gone up since I last lived here in 03-05. Consequently, the buses themselves have not improved all that much.) The bus started out relatively empty... just me and three other people, all of whom were going down to see the parade, and one of whom was actually going to stay for the game. The closer it got to downtown, though, the more packed the bus became until I was a wash in a sea of red and white.
I was not decked out in team colors. I had no particular reason for not, other than the fact that I didn't put anything with those colors on when I rolled out of bed.
When I disembarked at Government Square, people were already milling about. Some had come early to lay claim to the best seats along 5th Street for the parade and were sitting at the gutters in lawn chairs and on blankets. On any other day, someone doing that would be taken for a vagrant and summarily punished-- if not by the cops... who continue in a long tradition of harassment, rudeness, and a general apathy towards anyone who doesn't "look" right ... then by the amorally indignant downtown business elite... most of whom flee to the burbs at quitting time; on Opening Day, however, such social rules are overlooked, as in the carnival days of medieval Europe.
At that time, Carnival was an even when, among other things, lepers and retards, and the mentally ill were elected Kings of the Carnival (which is one of the early roots of our semi-Democratic process and with amazingly similar results) and people could be found copulating in the streets like pagans before the interference of Catholic missionaries.
Alas, it was too cold downtown for public fucking. And since it was a brisk 55 degrees, there would be next to no chance in the forecast for a storm of drunken topless women.
Not downtown. And if it was, I'd never point out which is me.
On the upside, the cops seemed to ignore the open container law as long as people put their beer in a brown paper bag -- yet another action that would normally be a sign that you are homeless, shiftless, unemployed, or all three, and therefore not worth being treated with human dignity.
I tried going to the beer and food bins set up along the edge of Fountain Square, but the lines were never less than 20 or 30 people long and I had no intention of waiting that long in line for warm $5 beer in a plastic cup. Also, I had no desire to be any closer than I had to be to the live band playing; they were OK for a bar cover band. But the mixture of Beach Boys and Soundgarden covers made me slightly nauseous. So I wandered around, bought a hot dog with kraut and mustard from a street vendor, and thought about where might be a good place to stand and see the parade.
[And by the way... and this goes out to all hot dog vendors in downtown Cincy... if you're going to offer sour kraut as a free condiment, IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS HOLY will you please be more liberal with your dashing of kraut? Pretty please? A few strands of cooked cabbage on top of a hot dog does not make for a true dog with kraut. Just a suggestion...]
Since I was downtown, though, and I had some time to kill, I decided to visit Strauss and Company Tobacconist, on Walnut about a third of a block away from 5th Street. Strauss's was one of those places I used to frequent when I lived in the Nati, and it was a place I missed after I moved. You don't really appreciate what it means to have access to an honest to jeebus tobacconist^ until you don't have it. And YES, I managed to find one in AZ.... but it required me driving to Scottsdale once a week instead of hopping a bus.
Plus, I just liked Strauss's store blends better.
While I was there I bought an ounce of their Losantiville^^ blend and splurged on some cigarillos^^^ from Holland. After I lit one up, I stepped back out onto the sidewalk and took note of the crowd. It had grown significantly, and there was still 45 minutes until the start of the parade. People were walking up from the river, probably having parked at the Great American Ball Park+. All of the gutter spots were full, and in some places people were standing two or three deep. The cops were beginning to block off the street, and the buses were already being diverted. There was no getting out until after 3:30pm, just in time for the commuter express bus that I planned on taking back to the burbs.
I stood around on the corner of 5th and Walnut, allowing the growing tide of baseball fans and families of fans engulf me. People gathered and crowds on all sides went from 2 or 3 people deep to sometimes 5 or 6 people deep; the crowd eventually seeped out into the intersection. Children sat down in the middle of the street like they were sitting under a tree in the park. I had to keep moving around because I was technically standing at the cross walk. Pretty soon the sidewalks themselves became impassable; the few homeless who were out got pushed into the doorways to make way for out of town fans and people who probably rarely spent more time downtown than it took to drive off of I-75 or 471, take an off ramp, and park at the stadium. 20 minutes until the parade procession was supposed to leave Findaly Market at 1 pm, and people were walking down the middle of 5th Street just to get from one place to another. I could tell from the ebb and flow of red and white around Fountain Square that people were getting set for the parade.
Then I thought about how long it might take the parade to make the 1.2 mile stretch (that number doesn't take into account any turns or stops in the parade route. And then I decided that I might have a better chance seeing the parade from the television at bar than having to look through the people standing in front of me, nearly all of whom were somehow magically taller than I am.
At that, I broke through, crossed 5th Street, broke through the blockage of people standing there, and made my way up Walnut. At 7th Street I turned right, and then left at Main. When I reached 8th Street, I crossed the street, walked a third of the way down the block to Arnold's... a bar that I used to spend a lot time at when I lived here before.
It was crowded, but not too much. People were milling around, and I figured the back patio was full. I managed to find a seat at the bar. After waiting what seemed like entirely too much time, I was finally served. They changed the taps since I was last there and were now serving 3 brews from the newly re-opened Christian Moerlein Brewery. I tried two of the three: The Northern Liberties IPA and the The OTR Pale Ale. I passed on the Friend of the Irishman Stout for pragmatic purposes -- stout beer isn't something you switch back and forth from. I did, however, try the Roebling Porter, brewed by the Rivertown Brewery, a new (to me) microbrewery and the lager from Listermann Brewing Company -- also a local brewery (and also the Brewmasters Store where I used to go, along with my friend Bret, to buy home brew supplies.)
I also had a shot of Maker's Mark... couldn't be helped.
And though I did watch some of the parade on the very small television in the corner, mostly I thought about how different the crowd at Arnold's was and how I didn't know anyone who worked there and how no one knew me anymore.
On the upside, the beers were all amazing. Those German roots serve you well, Cincinnati.++
[Thanks for reading. And remember, if you like it,
Pass the link on. Copy and Paste. Go ahead.
Click the donate button and help keep me traveling.
Thanks to the generous support of readers and other sympathetic folk, I was able to purchase a Greyhound Discovery Pass, which will allow me to bump around out west unfettered. And thanks (again) to all those whose continued support makes my travel and writing possible.
Also: A brief note on Operation Europe: This plan entails me making it across the pond for an indeterminate amount of time. My plan is to continue traveling around here, growing the blog and including more individual stories along with my travelog and general observations. I plan on doing more of the same in Europe... but it's nice to have an excuse... the gods know I rarely need one, but sometimes customs officials of foreign countries do... I've signed up for an online course that will certify me to teach English as a foreign language. Given my background in education, this should come as a no-brainer. The next steps include a) obtaining a passport, and b)the cost of a one way ticket. But I have a year or so to work on those things. More on this as it happens and as it approaches.
Thanks again for reading and for your generous support.
*WASP = White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. Around the time of WW1, the city fathers decided, as point of blind patriotism and out of fear that people would assume all Cincinnatians were German sympathizers, to erase any hint of the deeply ingrained German Heritage that defines so much of the city's past. Names were changed. Festivals cancelled. Around the late 1980's, it occurred to some that immigrant heritage might be a selling point and that money might be made off remembering the Germanic roots of the city.
**Reserve Clause: Contractual slavery. Read about it here.
^Tobacconist: a purveyor of fine tobaccos, cigars, and accessories. Not to be confused with the corner gas station.
^^Losantiville was the name originally given to the settle that later became Cincinnati. The term is a mash of four terms from four different languages that translates roughly to "the city opposite the mouth of the Licking River."
^^^cigarillos: literally tiny cigars... which means they're hand rolled, the way cigars were meant to be smoked. No filter, no tobacco paper (the shit they make regular cigarettes and mislabeled "little cigars" out of.)
+The Great American Ballpark: After Riverfront Stadium was demolished the new ballpark was named after it's corporate sponsor, The Great American Insurance Company. Not that the Capitalist overthrow of baseball is anything new... because nothing in this country could become "America's Game" unless some fat bastard was making a greasy buck off of it... but something still strikes me ill when I think about it. The new stadium has better seats and makes for a better game experience... though it also meant the city is stuck with Paul Brown Stadium, a wholesale rip off of tax payers by Bengals owner Mike Brown.
++Cincinnati: Comes from Cincinnatus, the name of a Roman Dictator who, surrendered his power back to the people when he felt it was time and returned to be a simple farmer. This is something that no one with political or corporate power in Cincinnati has ever thought to do. Nor will they. Ever.
For the money, for the glory, and for the fun. Mostly for the money. - The Bandit. Smokey and the Bandit (1977)
If you think this country is bad off now, just wait till I get through with it. - Rufus T. Firefly, Duck Soup (1933)
"I think I'm going to do it," he said as soon as we stepped up into the orange truck cab. I'd never been in one before. The closet I'd ever come to being a truck driver was when I delivered newspaper stacks for The Prairie Advocate News; and that truck was only a small box truck that didn't require a CDL. Paul* has been driving big rigs on and off for 20 years. And event though he has driven for other companies in the past, now he's basically working for himself.
"You're going to do what?"
"I know it's too late THIS time," he said. "But I think... with the ideas I have... that I'm going to run for President."
He said this with all earnestness, and I took him as seriously as I could. He and I had talked politics, culture, writing, and other miscellanea over the years. We've disagreed on some pretty large issues over the years; but he is at least thinking about things, and he is willing to articulate his views and discuss them.
I mentioned that the problem with running for President is that even if he ever got elected -- which, unless he finds a billionaire angel benefactor, would be improbable.
Which, to be honest, a little sad. I wish we lived in a country where every kid could grow up to be President; but the money changers have their spindly fingers tied around everything. (And if you think about it, they have more or less since the beginning.)
I did recommend that he consider running for Senator instead.
At one point, somewhere between Columbus and Cincinnati, we talked about the gold standard. He realizes that going back on gold would be a disaster; but he also pointed out that if that were to happen, and the economy collapsed and we had to go back to a barter system, that guys like him would be okay.
"I can do things with my hands," he said. "I can repair engines. I can build things. I'll be okay."
It's others... "college graduates that don't know how to DO anything" who would be in trouble.
It's argument I've heard before, and one that hits a bit close, since I'm pretty much a scribbler. Guess I could barter with bad poetry for all occasions. But given my disenchantment with higher education, and the fact that somebody somewhere has to be hording all that gold people sell to those places that promise "top dollar", I do find myself wondering how all the chips will fall... if, indeed they do.
But down deep, Paul -- like everyone I know and consider a good friend -- is a shameless romantic. And while he may not admit it, he's something of an idealist, too. (This is a conversation I've had often with many people. You don't need to be an optimist to be an idealist. As a matter of fact, part of being an idealist is understanding that the world is not as it could be... which, if you think about it long enough, will piss you off.)
Where we differ, maybe, is that he, like many people, still thinks the institution is salvageable and that people are an increasingly annoyance.
And when I say he's a shameless romantic, I mean it in the best sense of the term. Part of the reason I know this because he could be making more money doing something else; but instead he's an independent contractor, trying to work his way up to buying his own truck. He likes not having to listen to anyone else... most of the time. And like me, he's always had that odd little itch.
And like me, he soothes his itch with the romance of the open road... that long lost American Mythos which dictates thus:
If where you are isn't working, go somewhere else. Be someone else. Do something else.
The difference is that he still tries to have a home to go home to, and I think most every place is as good (and as bad) as every place else. He and his wife Cathy live in the Cincinnati area, and because he likes being home on weekends -- and because his wife would prefer to see him every once in a while -- Paul sticks to local delivery routes.
On this particular day, the route would take us to Dayton, up to to Columbus, and back down to Cincinnati -- loading up for a Sunday run up to Chicago where he'll empty it out and pick up something else. He hauls what's referred to as "Special Goods." This time, he picked up 4 hospital beds, some medical equipment that I thought looked like the machines used to separate plasma from blood (having been hooked to them in the past, selling my vital fluids, they looked familiar), two busted up motorcycles (a Police Edition Harley and a Ducati, neither of which deserved the rough treatment they received prior to being shipped), an ice cream machine, and 5 office copiers. I feel like I'm forgetting something. The point is, what Paul hauls stuff that isn't easy to pack and doesn't always fit into the trailer very well.
I've never asked him, but I suspect that Paul first thought about being a truck driver the around the same time I did... the first time I watched B.J. and the Bear. The 1979-1981 television show, staring Greg Evigan, was a cultural bubble in reaction (probably) to the Burt Reynolds/Sally Field/Jerry Reed/Jackie Gleason iconic movie Smokey and the Bandit.. which also spawned another cultural bubble, the popularity of the CB or Citizens' Band, radio.
Which, I think, has gotten a bad wrap in the from some factions of the cultural elite. The most you can say about it is that it's been surpassed by cell phones as a common form of communication. But as any trucker or Ham Radio operator will tell you... a cell phone tower can go down. Radio waves are just floating around, and all you need is the right receiver to pick them up. No 4G required, I guess is my point.
The world is a different thing when you're sitting in a big rig. You have to keep your distance (You're supposed to, anyway.) and you have to be aware at all times of how big you are and how small everything else is. On the other hand... other drivers sometimes take this for granted and don't always pay attention.
One of the reasons-- other than getting to see an old friend -- that I jumped at the chance to ride with Paul on his Friday route was that while I long ago figured out that my wanderlust is a different sort of thing than can be fixed behind the wheel of a behemoth, there's still a 10 year old boy inside me that wants to ride in big trucks, be a train conductor in a stripey hat, and ride in the fire truck just to turn on the siren.
I did, actually, once ask a Lexington Police officer if he could turn on the siren. Of course, I was riding in the back. And I was handcuffed. But that's another story. He rejected my request, by the way.
Part of was also curious about how a guy like Paul -- engaged in a job that, some have argued, does more harm than good to the environment -- is getting along and moving forward. Especially given that diesel prices are keeping pace with gas prices and there's no sign that it will get better any time soon. He defends what he does by pointing out that over the road is still the fastest way to get stuff from Point A to Point B. He also makes other dubious claims, like big rig engines actually clean the air in more polluted cities like Chicago and L.A.
He's also enough of a car guy to keep track of some of the work being done to run trucks cleaner while keeping it affordable. We talked some about natural gas and propane run trucks on the west coast. (an idea that seems too dangerous to take hold).
Underlying his defense of his livelihood, though, is an understanding that it's not just a paycheck he's defending. It's a way of life that could be disappearing...or, at any rate, could be changing to such a degree that it may not ever be the thing he wants it to be. It's already more expensive, more complicated, and dealing with increased scrutiny and oversight than at any time in the past.
And those are things that make independent people nervous. Maybe with good reason. Maybe enough to believe that being President of the United States will actually help.
[Thanks for reading. And remember, if you like it,
Pass the link on. Copy and Paste. Go ahead.
Click the donate button and help keep me traveling. I'm headed out again in a weeks... Greyhound ticket bought to get as far as Louisville, KY, at the tail end of a slingshot back through the Bluegrass (I promised) before heading west.
Contact Catherine Sellers at Greyhound, 415-331-6049. Tell them you are asking about a sponsorship when the operator picks up. I'd like to get enough money in my travel fund or convince them to give me a 60 Day DISCOVERY PASS.
Thanks again for reading and for your generous support.
Morning will come early in suburbia. Mi Madre and I are loading up and heading east on Ohio State Route 32, winding through Eastern Ohio to the West Virginia border. Somewhere around Charleston, we'll pick up I-64, which will take us all most of the way through Virginia and back to Norfolk... still top of my list as the single most unpleasant, unfriendly and curse-ed place I have ever been to.
