Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Travels in Philadelphia, part 1

,.,, On Memorial Day weekend, I traveled with Raisinette, Cordelia, and Jack Thunder to attend the wedding of our former coworker, Spec.

We left on Saturday morning and hit the road, heading ever eastward towards the great state of Pennsylvania and the historic city of Philadelphia.

The ride that morning was energetic; the conversations were random but steady. The music (supplied by three separate iPods) was eclectic but fun and familiar. To be honest, there wasn't much to report as Jack's car ate up the miles. But, certain things had to be pointed out--though I am sure that if I had written about these things the instant they occurred, everything would seem funnier. As it is, well . . . I don't know.

1. We came upon a mysterious billboard for some place called Gravity Hill. I don't know why this is noteworthy, since the presence of gravity--being (almost) a universal constant--upon a hill isn't that surprising. But, upon perusing the website, you can see that this place is an odd phenomenon. Beware!

2. We also noticed several stickers (at the PA turnpike gates) for a site called singleforlife.com. You can check out the site if you wish, but BE WARNED! While there is no nudity contained in what I saw, some of the images might be considered suggestive. The people that run this site are a bit put-out by marriage.

3. Beyond that, the event that stands out most in my memory is how Jack T. single-handedly reduced the deer population in rural Pennsylvania.

No one was injured--well, no human was injured.

It went down like this. We're driving along, going an appropriate 68 mph or so. We see two deer standing in the grass off to the right of the interstate's east-bound lanes. Jack, conscientious lover of wildlife that he is, prepared to honk his automobile horn to warn the deer of oncoming metal object. Unfortunately (and COMPLETELY unbeknownst to him I might add) he honks the horn just as one deer prepares to mount the other deer!

Naturally, the ill-timed juxtaposition of the horn and the mounting caused the male to stop and caused the female to run away. We all had a hearty laugh at Jack's horror upon what he had done. It wasn't clear in the rear-view mirror if the male deer took out his Barry White album and his mood lights to try and get his lady back in the mood.

So, that's it for the first part of my reflections on Philadelphia.

I'll write part two soon and will include interesting photos of our day in historic Philadelphia.

***
By the way, since I took a week off, I'm behind on my The Authority Speaks columns from yesteryear. Funny how no one complained. Hmmm.

1 comment:

flipper said...

While I can appreciate the concept of "Single for Life" these days (for obvious reasons), that web site sucks. What's the point of it? There's no support, no chat, no social network--the site does nothing but hawk its own merchandise. And what's with the people on the home page who look like they want to bite your face off? And what's with the merchandise photos? From those, the site would be more accurately titled "Sluts for Life." (No, wait--that sounds like some bizarre and misguided pro-life group.) Anyway, I just don't get it.