dr_lizardo

Hello friends

Tonight I'm at a Petro off exit 226 onI-76 in Pa on my way to a dropoff outside philly tomorrow.

I had an unpleasant experience a few days ago when I got myself all screwed up trying to get to a pickup in new jersey. Got off the right road, got back on again, and this black guy runs up to my truck and tells me there's a traffic accident ahead of me and he's a lumper for one of the businesses on that road and he'll show me how to get around it.

You never ever let anyone on your truck, they tell you in school, but you don't remember that until you make that mistake and see what happens.

He turned out to be a scam artist who takes you for a stupid ride around and then tries to bill you 36.50 for an "escort service". With shame I admit that I gave him a few dollars, a lot less than he wanted, and ended up just sitting there screaming at him to get out of my fucking truck.

This happened and I'll discuss it no further. I am still young and stupid in certain ways, but I escaped that incident missing just several dollars, it could have been a lot worse. And the next day and the day after I'm driving around to interesting new places, seeing and meeting some nice people, and he's still going to be a poor scam artist in a ghetto in Newark, so I'm still ahead of him in such respects as really matter.

Swift has been hitting me with some bigtime suckiness lately. I sat at the molly pitcher rest area on the new Jersey turnpike from thursday night to tuesday morning, no freight to haul. Then yesterday I didn't make any money, just had to be in Columbus OH for a log class. Swift is very bad about paperwork; they lose a lot of what you submit to them but they're still anal as all hell about any mistakes on the paperwork they don't manage to lose.

Having my bike on my truck saves my sanity I guess. There's a couple of escapes through the gate at the Molly Pitcher rest area and I found this exceedingly beatiful early 19th centure town, Cranbury, NJ, just a couple of miles away. I've hardly ever seen beautiful old houses like that in jersey where everything seems to be new. They did manage to be a lot different from the way houses are in western mass though, they were built very close together in an intimate downtown setting, where up in mass the majestic old saltboxes are further apart on their tracts of farmland with great old trees towering over the sidewalks in front.

Cranbury has an awesome used book store called the Bookworm where I found some CJ Cherryh titles really cheap, and they also have a great selection of CDs for four bucks apiece. Also has a nice chinese place called the Hot Wok, and a good italian joint a couple of doors up from that. There are also some upscale places where they don't put prices on the menu, if that's your thing.

When I was in columbus yesterday I actually could have gotten out of there around noon but I'm a lazy bastard when it comes to work, and I wanted to have a bit of a look round town. Just in the swift terminal's neighborhood I found a neat store that sells beds on one side and all kinds of funky stuff on the other. They have a back room full of adult toys and pot pipes. When I went back to check if I had a load I had one that didn't pick up till today so I took the opportunity to head down into downtown columbus. Not having a map I just headed down route 40, which really is not at all good for biking, a very busy main thoroughfare only intended for motor traffic. And when you're headed into town from the west like I was you pass though some not-so-nice neighborhood. But once you get into town it's nice enough. there's a park next to downtown with a lot of geese leaving many turds lying about. I headed northwards up the west side of the pond that's the center of the park. Came across a family of mom and dad goose with several goslings. I almost got a cute picture of all the goslings walking toward me, curious about me, but they lost interest and dispersed before I could get my camera out. I then quietly walked my bike past them, the parent geese hissed at me. Interesting.

So I headed round the north end of the park toward the north end of downtown, looking for a college which I judged likely to exist and likely to have some funky cafe's to hang out and watch girls in. I came across an attactive young woman walking two dogs, and then I came across her again on the other side of the park. I ventured to talk to her about her dogs and to ask what an interesting nearby building was. She didn't seem to want to talk which I guess isn't something to recriminate against her, as I guess I look a little scary, many days unshaven with my sunglasses, torn up military shorts an a big ugly post cold sore scab on my lip. But I was pleased with myself for actually making an attempt to talk to a female.

so after that I headed up around northern downtown and found a nice area with good restaurants and cafes and college artsy farts sorts about. It was only seven or so at the time and I had a couple of hours of daylight left so I decided to see what might like on the other side of the downtown area. Went down high street past the capitol building and it looked like there wasn't going to be much to see, but I noticed this little alley paved in brick like i'd seen a couple of streets on the north end, and when I went down that alley I found myself in one of the most incredibly beautiful and interesting and homey feeling neighborhoods anywhere in the world. The German Village in columbus ohio. You enter and you feel like you're in a vermeer painting. Brick sidewalks, brick houses, brick roads. house to sidewalk to road all brick. The houses tend to be long and skinny, three our four times as long front back as across the facade on the street. Found a litte cafe with some celtic music coming out, headed on to a little park where I watched a dress rehearsal of the local summer shakespeare in the park company doing Mary Stuart, a play written by friedrich Schiller, who has a big statue in the park, about queen elizabeth and mary queen of scots, and various people working to hasten or avert the application of the axe to mary QOS's neck.

Then I wandered through the village some more until I saw this building lit up like it was christmastime. The Sausage Haus, place of Sauerkraut, sausage and beer, bigtime germanness. I got ther at 930 and they wer set to close at ten but they let me sit down and get some dinner. I had a sausage sampler but didn't have a beer cuz i wanted my head clear on the bike ride back. Was great. I don't really like sauerkraut, but i eat it anyway as i don't like to waste food.

If you had to pick a heaven to spend eternity in (or hell if you're bad) that was something that existed on earth, you could do a lot worse than the German Village in Columbus. The houses I'm told run 250-300k on average, which isn't bad considering what such places in other metropolitan areas go for.

Sometimes it bothers me a bit that I'm inquisitive about the world and have the resourcefulness and boldness to go out and see it. I'm missing out on just sitting around truck teminals bitching about how slow freight is. In certain respects people of no resource or imagination have an advantage over me in that theres' a lot less in their lives to interfere with their being working oxen, and therefore they will tend to make more money than I. I feel like a grownup ought to be more pissed off than I get when there's no work, I feel sort of irresponsible for having my ability to enjoy time off.

My rear bike tire stared going flat on the way back from columbus and I ruined it earlier this evening when I attempted to repair it. so I'm temporarily bikeless until I can get a replacement tube. Vexing.

I hope I can get back up to mass for mem day weekend, as I suspect there won't be much going on in the truck biz.

well, love and kisses to all.