Leaving Pinellas County Traffic

I’ve lived in Pinellas County since 1976. I married here, raised two fine boys here, started and will end my career here, made good friends here, and had a hell of a time along the way. That being said, I’ll be happy the day I leave this place for good. And a lot of that has to do with the traffic.

The traffic in Pinellas County genuinely sucks. Not just a little suck like trying to sip that last of a milk shake; much more than an oops, I’m going to leave a hickey suck, but rather a giant, toilet plunger, stick to the wall-type suck.

During the work week in the part of the county I live in, you measure your progress not by the number of traffic lights you’ve made it through, but by the number of light cycles it takes for you to make it through an intersection.

Complete this sentence by choosing one of the three answers : There are intersections in Pinellas County where the timing of the traffic lights are (a) a test of patience from the Almighty (the book of Job comes to mind), (b) an intentional act of cruelty by a sadistic traffic engineer, or (c) proof that traffic engineering and the use of heavy narcotics do not mix.

I’ve known people to grow a beard waiting for a left turn arrow to exit off US 19.  When the left turn arrow finally comes, it usually lasts about four nanoseconds. Inevitably, the first person in line has gone to sleep or is texting and does not react to the green light until the last second, meaning you’ve got to spend another lifetime in the left turn lane.  

I should not be too hard on the traffic engineer community in Pinellas County. It must be impossible to create an orderly and timely flow of traffic when the road network is the traffic equivalent of a blivit. And I use the old definition of blivit: ten pounds of crap in a five pound bag.

For me, being stuck in traffic is worse than having my teeth drilled. It is a special kind of purgatory. The only thing worse than being stuck in traffic is being trapped at my mother’s house watching Judge Judy. I am particularly incensed when there is an accident during rush hour. You can spend ages trapped in a line of traffic waiting for the police to clear the scene. Several years ago commuters were stuck in traffic on the Skyway Bridge for over six hours because of a wreck. If that had happened to me, I would have jumped off the bridge and tried to swim home. I realize I would have risked death doing so, but that might have been a preferable alternative.

I worry that I might stroke out someday being stuck in a traffic jam due to an accident. I take the accident as a personal affront. I'm overcome by blind, mindless rage. I find myself cursing the drivers involved for being so stupid, ranting and raving at the EMS personnel and firemen for parking their vehicles across all lanes, and fuming at the police for standing around doing nothing to assist the flow of traffic. It’s not healthy for me.

What is it that Spock said? “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.” I wish EMS and the police would remember that when thousands of drivers are backed up in traffic because some idiot couldn’t drive right. It may sound callous, but why don’t they push the vehicles to the side of the road and let the rest of us get on with our lives? I suggest that the needs of the many to get home outweigh the need of the drivers involved to have their accident thoroughly measured, photographed, and investigated.

When it comes to idiots behind the wheel, I’d put Pinellas County drivers up against anyone. I’m sure the driver’s handbook for Pinellas County says that turn signals are against the law. And what is it about driving exclusively in the left hand lane? Is it a political thing? Are some drivers afraid that if they drive in the right hand lane it will reflect on their political beliefs? I’ve always wanted a sign in my car that said, “Show me your deed to the left hand lane.”

I’d like to know where they recruit the Nazis that pass for school crossing guards in Pinellas County. Talk about authority going to the head. I think the job requirements specify that you have to be old and a former member of the Waffen SS to be a school crossing guard. Look, I know that they are probably someone’s gentle and kind grandparent, but when they put on those crossing guard uniforms and grab their whistles and short-handled stop signs, they turn into Judge Dredd on a bad day.

How many times has this happened to you? The crossing guard signals you to stop at a crosswalk, and you see that there is no one waiting to cross the street. Perplexed, you look up and down the sidewalk to find out what the holdup is. Off in the distance, a good half a block away, some pimpled adolescent is slowly ambling down the sidewalk texting or talking on his cell phone totally oblivious to the traffic snarl that he is causing. It doesn’t matter to the Gestapo crossing guard how far traffic is backed up or that the entire line of traffic could have made it through the intersection before the kid reached the crosswalk. Why not make the kid wait for the traffic? He or she obviously is not all that anxious to get somewhere.

And do you think that kids crossing the street could hustle a little once they are in the crosswalk?  I mean, let’s do the hokey pokey and crawl across the intersection just to piss off drivers. Michelle Obama has this campaign about getting our youth to be physically fit. My contribution would be to require kids to double time across the street or face being run over. That would get them in shape.

I believe there are more old slow drivers in Pinellas County than anywhere is the world, and most of them must live in Dunedin. I’ve always wondered whether they are home grown or imported from the north. Pinellas County must be the elephants’ graveyard for old slow drivers. And they are slow. Glacial melt goes at a faster pace. I bet that wagon trains and cattle drives moved faster. Ward Bond and Gil Favor would not have put up with that crap.

Most of the time when you’re crawling along behind some old fart, you can’t tell if anyone is behind the wheel of the car--the driver is shriveled and slumped down in the driver’s seat peeking over the dashboard like someone is about to take a potshot at him. I realize that old people have to go out to get food and necessities and that the only practical way to do that is to drive to the supermarket. But at the pace they drive, I don’t understand why they don’t starve to death before they get there.

And then there are the drivers who are talking on their cell phones. Have you ever noticed the correlation between cell phone use and driving slowly? I think talking on a cell phone when driving should be a crime. First offense should be a heavy fine; for a second offense I’d rip their lips off or at least staple them together for a time.

Our local governments and chambers of commerce tout the great beaches and quality of life in Pinellas County. What a laugh. The beaches are crowded, there is no place to park, and it takes you forever to get to them because of the traffic.

No, I won’t miss Pinellas County traffic when I move to the country.

Why north Georgia?

Some people look at me like I’m nuts when I tell them I’m retiring, selling the house, and moving to north Georgia. “Why north Georgia, what’s there?” they ask. There are a lot of reasons, some thoughtful and considered, and some whimsical and subjective. Here are a few of them.

First of all, it is rural as opposed to urban. If the fundamental object of this move and lifestyle change is to get away from the bustle of urban life, then I need to move away from an urban area to the country. Duh! Fannin County certainly qualifies. Pinellas County packs 608,000 people into 917 square miles. Fannin County has 23,700 people in 391 square miles. So I’m going from 670 persons per square mile to 61 per square mile. Approximately 70 percent of Fannin County is national forest. Approximately 70 percent of Pinellas County is concrete, pavement, and mostly motionless old folks.

Fannin County is far enough north to have a change of seasons, cool evenings for most of the summer (by Florida standards), and an occasional snowfall in the winter. By the same token, it has a long growing season from mid-March to at least mid-October, gets warm enough during the summer to grow heat loving vegetables, and averages over 60 inches of rain annually. Hopefully that means I can grow just about anything I want except tropical fruits and vegetables.

There are several large lakes nearby, so I can continue fishing. I’ve have not done much freshwater fishing, and I’m sure it will not be as great as fishing on the Gulf Coast, but it will be fishing nonetheless. I’m just going to have to get used to catching fish that are the size of the ones we use for bait here in Florida.

Those are the main pragmatic reasons for selecting north Georgia as my retirement destination. Here are some whimsical and subjective ones.

People who live on your road still wave when they drive by.

In the summer, fireflies rise out of the fields as dusk descends. 

Pickup trucks outnumber Prii by 100 to 1. (Believe it or not, Prii is the plural of Prius. Look it up.) 

In McCaysville, just up the road from Mineral Bluff, there is a store called “McCaysville Drug and Gun”. You can get your prescription for Lithium filled and pick up a couple of boxes of 9mm ammunition at the same time. Is America great or what? 

You never see kids walking around with their pants halfway down their ass.

On a moonless night, the Milky Way stands out like a luminescent paint spatter spread across the sky.

You can walk into the supermarket wearing overalls, and no one notices.

In the spring the flowering dogwoods stand out like explosions of white petals along the fence line.

Blue Ridge still has an outdoor movie theater call the “Swan Drive-In.” It is cash only, no credit or debit cards accepted. In the event of rain, the movies will still show. It has a full concession stand, complete with funnel cakes and deep fried Oreos.  If that’s not country, nothing is.

You have to listen carefully to hear the noise of a vehicle, day or night. You can tell someone is coming to see you because you can hear the noise of their tires on the gravel road five minutes before they arrive.

In Mineral Bluff, the Shriners and the Masons hold their meetings over the Post Office.

You won’t find people looking like the living dead standing at intersections with crudely lettered signs.

The water from the tap comes out cold and tastes clean.

On the Fourth of July, you can see the fireworks from three or four small cities from our porch.

There is a stream named Hot House Creek just down the road from my place. Next to it is the Hot House Baptist Church. Odd name for a Baptist church.

On an early summer morning the air is so clean and sweet that it almost makes you heady.

A traffic jam is when you get behind a slow moving tractor pulling a trailer piled high with hay bales.

In the coming months I’m sure I’ll come up with other reasons why I like the country over crowded suburbia, and I’ll try to be honest when I discover reasons not to like the country.

Mowing the field and sipping suds

My two sons (Jake and Mike) and I made a lightning run to the property a couple of weekends ago. While there I did something that I believe will bring me great joy in the coming years.

The property has about six acres of field. Maybe it’s pasture since I’m not sure what the distinction is. Is a pasture a field that on which an animal grazes? In that case, I have a field. Actually I have two fields. There is an upper pasture which you can see from the cabin, and a lower pasture that is hidden by the brow of a hill. The upper pasture is about four acres, and the lower pasture is maybe two acres.

Last fall, I bought a tractor--a nice orange Kubota. My oldest son, Jake, now proudly displays a Kubota license plate on the front of his truck. I think he is living vicariously through me, which is a switch on the usual way these things work. I say that I bought the tractor, but really Meredith and the kids bought the tractor when they went to the property while I was stuck here doing work. I told Meredith to buy a tractor because I thought the kids would have a blast with it, and they did. Perhaps foolishly, I think owning a tractor gives me street cred in north Georgia.

It’s not exactly a tractor suitable for agri-business, but it is far more than a garden tractor. You have to step up to get into it. It has a front loader, a three point hitch, and a PTO--all the stuff that the big boys have. I also bought a bushhog mowing deck.

Anyway, the reason the boys and I went to Georgia a couple of weekends ago was to permanently move the 1969 Dodge Charger that the kids are restoring. The car is the same make, model and year as the General Lee of Dukes of Hazzard fame and, in fact, was painted as the General Lee, complete with the Confederate battle flag on top, when I bought it. That’s the way it will look if it ever gets restored. You bet your ass that will give me mega street cred in north Georgia.

On Saturday afternoon I got the bright idea to mow the upper field because the grass was getting high. I had never done that before, but the kids had. They helped me mount the mowing deck and away I went. I discovered there is something very pleasurable about mowing a large field on a tractor on a nice day. The upper field has terrain and is irregularly shaped, and there are some large trees growing in it, so it is not simple matter of going back and forth in straight lines. You have to be creative and try to figure out the best way to mow the field with the most economy of movement.

As you mow you begin to notice subtle differences between different sections of the field. In some places the soil is a slightly more dry and rocky. The grass is lusher and there are less brambles in the lower sections of the field. I saw two small ovals of matted down grass where a fawn had lain.

But the best thing was when Mike ran out to me with a cold beer. Mowing a field is thirsty work, and the beer was welcome. As I drove around with that beer in my hand, a big, shit-eating grin came over my face. It came to me that there was something deeply satisfying about mowing a field on a tractor with a cold brew in my hand. I can’t place my finger on why that is. It may be that driving a tractor while drinking beer is one of the ultimate guy things to do. Hell, for most guys, doing anything while drinking a beer is a guy thing to do. But I think there is more to it than that. Maybe I was overcome with a sense of stewardship over my own property, or maybe I had the feeling that I was walking (or more properly, riding) in the footsteps of our honest, hard-working, touched-by-the-soil agrarian forefathers (no romanticism here). Regardless, I had a hell of a good time mowing that field and getting a little buzzed in the process.

So now I’m trying to figure out how I can mount a small cooler on the tractor, and I wouldn’t mind getting a shade cover with little fringes for over my head. For some reason, the little fringes are important because that’s how I picture it in my mind. I also think I need to get a good set of earphones so I can listen to music while I mow. It would be really nice to listen to some reggae, bluegrass, or Texas country music while mowing the field.

So there you have it. I have discovered a new pleasure in life. It’s something that I will be able to do at my leisure after I move to Georgia, and that’s a good thing. I may have the best mowed fields in the county before I’m done.