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Driving to Jefferson City a few weeks ago for work, I passed through a very small Missouri town, the name of which I promptly forgot. On the roof of what appeared to be a normal residential home, however, sat a Sinclair dinosaur.
(Sinclair, for those of you not from the Midwest, is a gas station chain whose trademark is a green dinosaur.)
Behold, the bizarre small town Missouri rooftop Sinclair dinosaur:
Rooftop Dino, photo by smalltowngirl
It’s the time of year in Small Town, Missouri when tents are pitched under which bottle rockets and Roman candles and sparklers and M-60s are sold to kids who save their allowances for weeks in order to blow things up on the nation’s anniversary.
Like most kids, my brother and I liked to blow things up. Like most country kids, we had plenty of access to flamable objects and ingitables. Of all the things we tried to make explode, my favorite was the He-Man doll.
He-Men were hollow on the inside, so we popped off little He-Man’s head, filled him up with gasoline and lit him on fire. Yellow plastic melted onto the concrete outside the basement door and our dad was fit to be tied. I’m pretty sure we were punished for it, but I’m also pretty sure we spent hours giggling over it out of ear-shot from our parents.
Over the next few days, tables will be set up and truckloads of fireworks will be hauled in. Moms and dad will bring kids to buy supplies for their little kid arsenals, and on 4th, lots of little kiddos will be making memories that they’ll reminesce over, just like my brother and I still reminesce about melting little He-Man.
The morning sun was at my back as I drove North on Highway 8. I was hovering just below the speed limit as I approached the Potosi city limits.
There is no turning lane on the highway in that spot, so when I saw a car passing the pick-up, I realized that the truck was in my lane. I slammed on my brakes, gripping the steering wheel with my left hand and throwing my right hand to my horn.
The grey and black Ford F-150 looked like a wall of steel standing before me as I braced for impact.
The left front end of his truck struck my front driver’s side. His truck scraped down the side of my car, and I watched the shoulder of the road move all too quickly beneath my tires.
I felt my car leave the road, then the shoulder of the road, and finally come to a stop nose-down in a six-foot ditch.
I put the car in park. By the time I got out and turned to look at the scene of the accident, the truck’s driver was already halfway between his truck and my car, asking me if I was alright, and
apologizing.
Adrenaline pumping, my hands began to shake. Soon my arms and shoulders began to shiver and shake, too.
By the time the police reports were written, the car was on a tow truck and I had arrived at the auto shop, I was sick to my stomach and exhausted.
My dad helped me with the phone calls and paperwork for insurance and a rental car, and then I worked a 7 hour day, leaving the office well after 9 p.m.
I slept for 12 hours last night though, and spent today with a sadness in my stomach that I can’t explain.
The sadness was there yesterday as well. I wished someone would hug me so that I could let the tears flow. Instead, I worked. Today I cleaned and unpacked more boxes, and only now, after midnight, in my bed alone, are a few tears falling.
I wasn’t afraid. As I braced for impact, I felt at peace with whatever was about to happen.
What a strange thing – to be aware of that sense of peace even as a Ford truck is pummeling the car you’re driving. I think I resigned myself in that moment that I was prepared for whatever hand God was dealing me.
I was a blessed woman to have landed in the cozy 6-foot ditch that I landed in (rather than in any number of 50+ foot drop-offs along that highway), and while I was at peace with whatever was going to happen, I am so, so thankful that I was given another day to wake up and live today.
Smalltowngirl
Taken 3/14/09 in Potosi, MO
One of the questions I’ve gotten over and over about my move from NYC to MO is, “How are you enjoying driving everywhere?”
Another is, “How do you like your 42 mile commute?”
On a whole, I don’t mind the commute or the driving. One thing that subway life taught me, however, was just how dangerous highways are.
When I’d visit family in MO, I’d see people…
Eating and driving…
Talking on a cell phone and driving…
Talking on a cell phone, eating and driving…
Talking on the phone, smoking a cigarette and driving…
…sometimes while driving a stick shift…
Reading a driving…
Digging around in their floorboard and driving…
These multi-tasking drivers scare me.
Why do they scare me? Because cars are big, heavy machines that go very, very fast.
Today, I was driving my own big, strong, heavy machine (i.e. a Ford Taurus) to work when a younger driver in a much bigger, heavier, stronger machine (i.e. an early-1990s Ford F-150) made a lefthand turn on a state highway.
Making a lefthand turn isn’t inherently problematic. Making a lefthand turn into the lane in which I am driving, however, is very
problematic.
I realized what was about to happen before it happened, honking and swerving to try to avoid being hit. To no avail.
His truck hit my car on the driver’s side, and then pushed it into a fairly deep ditch, where the front end of my (relatively smaller), but still strong and heavy machine’s front end saw further abuse by Missouri clay and rocks.
Thank God no one was hurt, but Lordy people, please don’t forget that driving is a responsibility, and that automobiles are dangerous.
MO=0; NY=1
On my new daily commute, I pass Bannister City, the mobile home community where my aunt and cousins lived for most of my childhood. Each time we stopped in to visit them there, I would come home to our four bedroom ranch-style house on a beautiful seven-acre hill feeling pretty lucky.
My dad’s first house was a trailer. He bought it in college, and lived in it from then through his first bit of marriage with my mom. They upgraded later to a starter house, and finally to the house on the hill, which will be where they retire.
It seems to me like that sort of gradual upgrading was pretty typically in the 1970s and 80s. Now though, young people, myself included, are hesitant to buy into the world of manufactured and starter homes. I’m not here to write a polical tangent; we all know about sub-prime homes and the people who have taken on mortages that are beyond their means.
What I’m talking about here is nostalgia for a time when everything didn’t have to be bigger and flashier and better. A time when it was fashionable to be a little bit frugal; to have some money in the bank, and to have a home you could afford.
I gave The St. Louis Post-Dispatch an earnest try this morning. I was turned off by many of the comments left by readers on this story of a perfectly preserved 1950s home and the family who preserved it.
Many readers left unsupported comments calling the family “mentally ill” or “wierd”, and I found myself angry at the judgements against this family who the readers had never met. Instead of commenting on the house’s pink bathroom or 1952 Frigidaire, readers were focused on tearing down people they didn’t even know.
Rock on, readers of The Post-Dispatch, rock on with your hateful selves.
I’m not sure if this says more about the way St. Louisans think, or more about the St. Louisans who comment on The Post Dispatch‘s stories. Either way, after twenty minutes of reading The Post-Dispatch, this story’s comments were the breaking point for me, and I found myself running by to my old standby, The New York Times.
As I read the front page, my shoulders relaxed, and I settled in to my indulgent weekly Times time. The first story that caught my attention was on, of all things, New York City’s only trailer park.
In Missouri, a trailer park isn’t exactly luxury living, but for New York City, to be able to buy several rooms, a washer and dryer, a sunroof, parking, and “a garden knome or two” for $500/month is pretty attractive. There’s something to be said for living well, but keeping things within your means.
