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AG: pickup trucks
Once upon a time I happened to mention somewhere on Usenet that getting rid of one of our two internal-combustion vehicles would increase our carbon footprint, because we can do car things with the pickup truck, but we couldn't do truck things with the car. An anti-truck fanatic told me, with a perfectly-straight face and absolute sincerity, that adding a trailer to my car would render it capable of towing trailers. I drive the truck now and again, but I pulled a trailer a few blocks exactly once, and I'm never, ever going to tow a trailer on a public road again. Luckily, my spouse doesn't mind. I don't drive the truck very often. I fetched a sheet of plywood with it several years ago, once I fetched bottled water for a church event, and twice I drove it to Nappanee intending to ride to Bremen. Well, the second time I drove to Bremen intending to ride to Nappanee. Didn't make it either time. The first trip went very well at first -- I rode east on a deserted county road to a fabric shop, then returned to Nappanee. On the return leg I met an Amish man on a pedestrian accelerator, and we waved to one another. Nothing to do with whatever that virulent exchange about "waiving" was -- I think that that was some other newsgroup -- but simply "I observe that another human being is present." After putting my thread and bodkin into the truck and buying a bottle of tea, I headed west toward Bremen. After the first turn, I stopped to consult my map, and a scrap of paper fell out. I tried to pick it up without dismounting, lost my balance, and, being tangled in the bike, landed like a sack of wet cement. I got so banged up that after I'd made it as far as the bike shop (and consternated the children left to watch it; since my vehicle made no noise, they didn't notice that I was there until I was preparing to leave) I turned back and returned to Martin's. Whereupon I discovered that I was so sore that I couldn't lift the bike into the truck. A young man who was passing by noticed my difficulty and loaded it for me. I was, at least, capable of climbing into the truck bed to bungee the bike. In the above incident, the wet-leaves-under-dry-leaves incident, and the black-ice-on-the-sidewalk incident, I landed on my left hip. (After stepping on the ice, I re-wrote the scene in _Vorjack_ in which the title character conceals a crippling injury.) I don't think all those impacts did my current condition any good. The second trip was a year or so later; I'd hardly gotten onto US 30 before I realized that my rotator cuff hadn't recovered from driving to Frankfort and back a few months earlier. It quit hurting when I quit driving, but it had put me out of the mood to ride in cold damp, so instead of exploring, I rode in a straight line to a country store and the same straight line back. The store was not open on that day of the week, but I found some white cheddar at a store I passed on the way, and I bought lots of goodies at Rentown, which is where I had parked. I wish I could go back and get some more coarse-ground almond butter, but I'm still afraid to drive that far. For quite a while after that, my range in a car was a fraction of my range on a bike. I really should drive more often, for the exercise. We need to stock up on frozen foods, which should be motivation. Last time I drove to the grocery stores, I went out to 250 East on Wooster and came back to town on Thirty. Perhaps next time, I should go to 350 East. Umm . . . I've done that on the bike many times -- usually in the other direction -- but is the 350 E railroad crossing open to *cars*? I do remember one time that it wasn't, therefore not being blocked must be the normal state. -------------------------------- Tour d'Warsaw today: two farmer's markets, two groceries, the library, and the dollar store. I skipped the side-trip up Detroit and ate "rye" rolls and cream cheese in the parking lot of Owen's West. -- Joy Beeson joy beeson at comcast dot net http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/ --- This email has been checked for viruses by AVG. https://www.avg.com |
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