Under the Wire

I have lived my entire life near small towns. I’ve never had an address connected to a big town for very long. If the little town I lived near became a big one, or heaven forbid, began calling itself a city, I moved. The town I live near calls itself a city but I think they’re kind of teasing about that, with our one stop light and weekly newspaper.

The truth is, I’m afraid of big towns. It’s the traffic that scares me the most. In fact, I’d rather get beaten by three guys with sticks than drive through a genuine big city. I understand that the three-guy thing is also an option in most cities. That’s number two on my list of the reasons I don’t like “big” cities and the reason I usually am sure my pickup doors are locked anytime my speed drops below 50 miles per hour in the city. Actually the chance of that happening isn’t too great, either, since everybody in the city seems compelled to drive at least 65 everywhere they go and my pickup door locks don’t work.

I really shouldn’t be too concerned about being car-jacked, anyway. There probably isn’t a lot of demand among gangs of car thieves for a mud-caked Chevy pickup with a box of calf scour boluses on the dash and 300 pounds of orange hay strings blowing around in the back. Never-the-less, I worry.

My biggest worry, however, simply is the traffic. Hurtling down I-25 bumper to bumper at 75 miles per hour just isn’t a good idea. We get in a hurry in our small town but rarely is it important enough to risk our lives for. How could everyone be in that much of a hurry? I can see one or two in a hundred needing to get somewhere in five minutes but, everybody? Come on now, some of them have got to be driving like that for no good reason. These people seem to have no fear at all when behind the wheel ... well, almost none.

Occasionally I have pulled a horse or stock trailer through a city. Actually, over the years, I’ve probably pulled a horse trailer through almost every major midwest or western city. For some reason a horse or stock trailer seems to buy you a little slack from the would be Parnelli Joneses of the world. I’m not sure if city drivers fear the animals within, the size of the combined pickup and trailer or actually have compassion for one so stupid as to venture onto their raceway in such an unworthy vehicle. I’ve also noticed that wearing a cowboy hat will buy you a little sympathy in traffic. A good Stetson tells fellow drivers, “Look out for this one. He obviously is not of this world and thus we must give him a little extra room to drive as is the custom where he is from.”

By the way, regarding how we do drive “out where I’m from," I have been told we don’t do too well in our own environment, either. This comes to me from city dwellers who have recently moved to our area. A lady recently remarked to my wife and I how bad we locals drive. “These old farmers and ranchers mope around town and never use their turn signals. What’s wrong?” she asked, “Didn’t anyone ever tell them what that little lever on the left side of the steering column was for?”

Since I was probably one of those she was talking about, I really couldn’t answer her question. My wife, though, had the answer. “That’s easy,” she said, “around here, nobody signals because we all know where they’re going.”