Regular readers of this column may get the impression that I like nothing better than taking part in different social activities and events, gallivanting around town while chatting to all and sundry.
This is true to an extent, but I also jump at the chance to do nothing. When the opportunity presents itself, I grasp it with both hands.
So when I heard that Richland Public Health, on behalf of The National Bicycle and Pedestrian Documentation Project, were looking for volunteers to sit at intersections and count – well, bicycles and pedestrians – I figured this would be a great excuse to sit on a street corner and watch the world go by.
My assigned spot was at the intersection of Wood Street and Glessner Avenue, just east of the hospital and right by the Dairy Queen.
As Homer Simpson once said, in America we love our Queens, be they Homecoming or Dairy. I agree with this sentiment and on the whole and find Dairy Queens to be most agreeable. But I have trouble understanding the menu. It seems unnecessarily convoluted. As a result I tend to stick with one item, but even then I encounter confusion.
RUSSELL: A medium turtle blizzard, please.
SERVER: Do you want the pecan, hon?
RUSSELL: Well, I don’t know .. what are my options within the turtle family?
SERVER: (pause) There aren’t any options. Just pecan.
RUSSELL: Then I believe that’s what I want.
I took my blizzard and sat in my car in the parking lot. I had my forms laid out, my pencils ready, and a clear view of the traffic coming and going. It was a pleasant day so I rolled the windows down and settled in happily for a relaxing two hours with no one to bother me.
It has to be said this intersection has calmed down considerably since the forced closure of the Corner Hideaway Bar, a tavern of ill-repute that operated with an amusing “Wild West” theme featuring whoops, yells, barroom brawls and the kind of high-spirited drunken exuberance that leads to the inevitable discharge of firearms.
They had a good run but nothing lasts forever, and as the old saying goes: “it’s all fun and games until you attract the attention of the State Liquor Agency Control Board.”
I let out a deep sigh knowing I could just sit in silence for two hours. I was beginning to feel the same kind of calm I experienced when my house lost power for seven days after a storm.
That wasn’t a time of suffering. I look back on it as a joyous period. The air was free of the sound of thumping stereos. Books were read. Neighbors were friendly to each other, and a kindly soul with a generator set up a community refrigerator in the street.
Once you begin to revel in peace and quiet and take the time to disengage, you can feel your mind start to clear itself out. A frenetic vacation may not do this for you, which is why this summer I plan to retreat to a solitary log cabin in the backwoods of Ohio for a blissful week of nothing.
Silence and solitude are so rare these days it’s like taking a hallucinogenic trip. Outside the bustle of everyday life and the constant intrusion of cyber chatter, your brain will find different pathways of thought.
Careful though — an empty mind does not necessarily fill itself with good or useful things. One of the few times we’re forced to think without distraction is in the shower. Many’s the shower I’ve emerged from furious about an imaginary argument I’ve just concocted in my head regarding something that hasn’t happened.
As the comedian Louis C.K. has remarked, when we feel oncoming sadness we reach for our phones to block it out. Sitting at my intersection observing the passing traffic, it appeared that the number of drivers who pull up at an intersection while looking at their phone is approaching 100 percent. And every one of them looks bloody miserable.
A car pulled up to a red light with two women up front and two children in the back. All four were frowning into their phones looking utterly dejected.
“Well now,” I said out loud, affecting a southern accent, “isn’t THAT just a carload of happiness!”
So far, apart from a grudging period with a corporate Blackberry, I have persisted without a smartphone. This may be changing as my camera broke this week and a phone upgrade seems like the simplest solution, but I’m not happy about it.
My blizzard was long finished. I dug around the mess in the car and found some banana chips. It felt a bit like I was on a stakeout. Ever since Starsky & Hutch, I’ve loved the idea of a stakeout.
In fact, I often pretend I’m on a stakeout while eating lunch in my car, and sometimes it even has a purpose. I once saw a vanity plate on a parked car that was so asinine, I felt compelled to wait around so I could see the fool that owned it.
Here in the Dairy Queen parking lot I was having a fine old time. Although it was not part of my official business, I made a note of the numbers on the cop cars as they passed by on their rounds. One of them rolled through my intersection three times. “You’re not watching me, copper,” I chuckled to myself, “I’m watching YOU.”
I don’t want you to think I wasn’t paying attention to the task at hand. I was absolutely scrupulous in recording each pedestrian and bicyclist, carefully notating their direction of travel.
At the very end of my shift, a pedestrian approached the intersection but lingered a little. The clock ticked past the hour before he made the turn so he did not go down on my sheet. Unaware of his failure to make the cut, he turned left onto Wood Street and continued on his way.
I put my forms away and drove out of the lot, satisfied with a job well done and an afternoon well spent. It was probably the high point of my weekend.
