Insight: Life in the fast lane

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

In looking back regarding my experience with automobiles, I’d have to say it’s not my favorite subject.

The first new car that Ed Pierce ever purchased was this
1974 Mercury Capri. COURTESY PHOTO

That can probably be explained by a series of misfortunes and bad purchases through the years that left me wondering if I would ever find the right vehicle.

Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell once said, “Always focus on the front windshield and not the rearview mirror,” and yet there are some automobiles that I’ve owned that are truly unforgettable.

The first one I owned was a 1956 Chevy that I purchased from a college classmate. That lasted for a few years until the left rear wheel well rusted through, and driving through puddles resulted in a stream of rainwater spraying the back of my driver’s seat.

My first new car purchase was a 1974 Mercury Capri and the difference between it and the 1956 Chevy was significant. The Chevy’s interior was made of steel, while the Capri’s interior was mostly plastic. The Capri’s rear window was angled and the sun damage it caused to the back seats and rear window mat left me with no other choice than to place a bathmat there to absorb the harmful UV rays.

The Capri was sold when I entered the U.S. Air Force and was assigned overseas. Returning to the U.S. two years later, I purchased a 1969 Volkswagen Beetle for $500 and was pleased with it until driving to work at The Pentagon one winter morning. The sun was shining, and I wanted some fresh air, so I rolled the driver’s window down about halfway.

Apparently, that knocked the driver’s window off the track, and it was stuck in that position. No matter what I did to fix it, it wouldn’t work. So, I tried taking the entire door apart to resolve the problem. That only created more of a problem in trying to put the door back together. I never could get the window back on its proper track, so I inserted a piece of wood there to hold the window up. If I needed to put the window down, I removed the wood. But after a while that got very tedious, and so I went to the auto salvage junkyard and found another Volkswagen door. The only issue was it was white, and my Volkswagen was green.

I drove the Volkswagen that way for a year until I traded it in for a new 1981 Datsun pickup truck. That truck took me across the country to my new military assignment in Arizona. The only problem with it turned out to be the truck’s plastic fuel filter which was so tiny that it frequently clogged from using inexpensive gasoline and left me stranded on more than one occasion.

That truck was sold, and I eventually purchased a 1978 Chrysler LeBaron. That was a huge and lengthy automobile and was good for a few years until the brakes went out on it as I neared a brick wall at 40 mph. I struck the wall head-on, and that vehicle’s front end crumpled like an accordion. Before it could be hauled away, tall grass underneath where it was parked caught fire and burned the interior.   

Moving to Florida, my father helped me buy a used 1986 Buick Regal for $1,700. That was a decent car, but it was doomed when some sort of hose became loose while driving on I-95 late at night sparking an engine fire and resulting in it too being dispatched to the junkyard.

A co-worker then sold me a 1985 Ford Tempo for $400. It had belonged to his daughter, and he was selling it because his family had presented her with a new car for her high school graduation. The daughter’s boyfriend had upgraded the stereo system in the vehicle, and it was good on gas. But one night at work, somebody returning from a break in the parking lot told me they thought they saw smoke inside my car. When I opened the side door, a fireball erupted inside, torching the steering wheel and melting most of the dashboard. The daughter’s boyfriend hadn’t connected wires properly installing the stereo and caused the fire.

A used car dealer took the Tempo in trade and gave me $300 for it when I purchased a used 1988 Pontiac Grand Am from him. After spending thousands on mechanical repairs for the Grand Am over three years, I traded that in for a used 1996 Pontiac Firebird. I drove that for several years after paying off the five-year car loan. The Firebird had pop-up front headlights and when one of the headlight motors went out, I couldn’t afford to replace it.

Instead, I inserted a spoon in the grill to the headlight framework to hold it up and that worked for a while. The other issue was the outlandish replacement cost for tires on the Firebird which I also could not afford. It was parked for about a year before I sold the Firebird to someone who wanted to use it to haul their boat around.

My next vehicle was a 2004 Hyundai Sonata which ended up being a total loss following a crash. These days I have a 2011 Hyundai Sonata which I purchased in 2014 and it’s still going.

If my vehicle history was a novel, its title would be “Exhausting.” <

   

Andy Young: Valentine's Day - the untold story

By Andy Young

Like St. Patrick’s Day and Halloween, Valentine’s Day doesn’t come with legally mandated time off from work. But there’s more to earning red-letter-day status than falling on a Monday. Sure, each of the 12 federal holidays is significant. But if you ask any florist, chocolatier, or restaurateur what the year’s most important holiday is, their response won’t be Memorial Day, Labor Day, or Juneteenth.

February 14th is nominally about appreciating one’s sweetheart(s)but what truly drives it is unfettered capitalism, or more specifically the combined marketing efforts of corporate giants like Hallmark, Godiva Chocolates, and FTD. Plush toy sales skyrocket on Valentine’s Day as well, and have ever since 1889, when German inventor Heinrich Tedibaer revolutionized the industry by inventing a process enabling skilled seamstresses to fashion cuddly toys with man-made materials. Previously the only way of producing a stuffed animal was to actually slay one, then gut it, remove the bones, and fill the fur with sawdust and rolled-up newspaper before sewing it back together. Unsurprisingly, few recipients of pre-1889 stuffies found such gifts even remotely romantic.

The differences between Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day are striking. One pseudo-holiday is named for the saint credited with removing every snake from the Emerald Isle. The other commemorates a 1929 massacre that eliminated less than one one-hundredth of a percent of Chicago’s gangster population. In addition, March 17th has an endearing nickname, St. Paddy’s Day. In contrast, February 14th’s proposed diminution, VD Day, never caught on, although no one really knows why.

The only holiday rivaling Valentine’s Day for sugar consumption is Halloween, which combines another alarming spike in candy sales with the commemoration of the memorable (though fortunately fictional) lives of Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, and Freddy Krueger, among others.

Anyone who thinks Valentine's Day is just about roses, romantic dinners, and candy hearts embossed with romance-themed two-word expressions like “Love you,” “Be mine,” and “Do me,” hasn’t studied American political history.

Democrat Tim Valentine served six terms as a Congressman from North Carolina’s 2nd district from 1983-1995, and Republican Edward Valentine represented Nebraska’s 3rd district in that same chamber a century before, from 1883-1885.

Comedian Jack Benny was born on February 14th, 1894. Other notable Valentine’s Day babies: labor leader Jimmy Hoffa (1913), former New Hampshire governor and senator Judd Gregg (1947); radio host Terry Gross (1951), 7-foot-7-inch basketball player Gheorghe Muresan (1971); NFL football star Jadeveon Clowney (1993); and legendary jockey Johnny Longden (1907).

Among the people of consequence who breathed their last on a Valentine’s Day: Captain James Cook (1779); Vicente Guerrero, Mexico’s 2nd president (1831); Hall of Fame baseball pitcher Three-Finger Brown (1948); and legendary jockey Johnny Longden (2003). February 14ths are challenging for the remaining members of the Longden clan, who don’t know whether to celebrate the date of their famous relative’s birth or mourn the anniversary of his passing.

Actress Karen Valentine won an Emmy Award in 1970 for her role on Room 222, a pioneering TV show about a racially diverse high school. Major league baseball players Ellis Valentine, Bobby Valentine, and Fred Valentine all starred at times during their respective careers, as did professional grappler Jonathan Anthony Wisniski, who was more familiarly known to wrestling fans as Greg “The Hammer” Valentine. Unfortunately, none of these Valentines were born on February 14th.

So now, in the words of the late, legendary radio commentator Paul Harvey, you know The Rest of the Story about Valentine’s Day.

Except Paul Harvey wasn’t born on February 14th. And Heinrich Tedibaer is just as fictional as (albeit far less ghoulish than) Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, and Freddy Krueger. <

Insight: Overruling any objections

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

One of my favorite movies is “To Kill A Mockingbird,” and in that film attorney Atticus Finch proclaims, “A court is only as sound as its jury, and a jury is only as sound as the people who make it up.” Judge for yourself, but throughout February, I have been summoned as a potential juror.

Most of my exposure to the legal system comes from watching cases tried on television, such as the Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard media circus or most notably, the O.J. Simpson murder trial in the 1990s.

I previously served on two juries when I lived in Florida. The first time the parties went through the jury selection process, and I was seated in the group, but within minutes of starting the trial, the judge dismissed the jury as the parties had reached a settlement.

The second time was totally different. It took most of the morning to find jurors acceptable to both attorneys involved in the case. By noon a jury was seated, and I was among them. The judge had the courtroom break for lunch and the trial resumed with testimony for the remainder of the afternoon and into the following day.

The case was rather interesting to me. A Haitian immigrant who spoke very little English finished work as a stonemason for a contractor late in the afternoon of the Friday before Memorial Day. Before leaving, the contractor paid him a month’s salary of about $8,000 in cash in a brown paper bag he placed in the truck’s center console. He got in his pickup truck and started to drive home when another Haitian immigrant at the work site flagged the stonemason down and asked if he could give him a ride home.

During one of the hottest and most humid times of the year in Florida, the air conditioner in the pickup truck did not work and so the stonemason and his co-worker rolled the windows down to have some fresh air come into the truck. As they arrived at the co-worker’s home, he asked the stonemason to wait for a moment as he went inside for something. He reemerged with a four-pack of Bartles & Jaymes wine coolers, although it was missing two bottles. He said it was a gift for his kindness in giving him a ride home.

Taking off again, it was now dark outside, and the stonemason noticed flashing lights up ahead on the highway. It was a police DWI roadblock. He was pulled over and an officer noticed the unopened Bartles & Jaymes wine coolers on the passenger seat. He instructed the stonemason to step out of the truck and gave him a field sobriety test.

The Haitian immigrant passed all field sobriety testing, but as he didn’t reply to some of the questions the officer asked because he didn’t understand much English and the officer didn’t speak his language, Creole, the officer detained him and requested another police car and officers to take him to the police station for blood testing for intoxication.

Once at the police station, blood was drawn from the Haitian. Since results would not be available from the lab for several days, he was booked for DWI and transported to the county jail. His pickup truck was towed to the county impound yard. It was Memorial Day Weekend, and the Haitian waited in the jail the remainder of Friday evening, Saturday, Sunday and through Monday as it was Memorial Day, just to obtain an attorney.

When the results of the blood test confirmed no alcohol in his system, the attorney for the state dropped charges filed against him and he was freed from jail. At the impound yard, he reclaimed his truck only after his attorney paid the $750 towing and storage fees. And to his surprise, the brown paper bag of cash was missing.

He sued the city and the police department for $50,000 for false imprisonment, false arrest, his expense of having to hire an attorney, the loss of a month’s salary from the missing bag of cash, and the suffering and humiliation from spending four days in the slammer.

All of this had taken place three years before this trial that I was a juror for. We listened to all the testimony and adjourned to the jury room for our deliberation. To us, it was clear who had made a mistake. We reached a verdict for the plaintiff but before we could announce our decision, the judge dismissed the case.

It seems that the plaintiff’s attorney had made some sort of technical error when filling out the paperwork for the case and this was brought to the judge’s attention during the jury’s deliberations. The judge visited us in the jury room before we left and said he had no choice but to dismiss this case and that the plaintiff’s attorney said he was going to file the case for trial again, even if it took another three years to get on the court docket.

Now I am on the precipice again of doing my civic duty and serving as a potential juror. Paying homage to Atticus Finch, I’m hoping I can remain of sound mind until then. <

Rookie Mama: The discount snack haul of fame

By Michelle Cote
The Rookie Mama

I’ve rekindled that old lost love for our local surplus and salvage store.

Alas, it’s the store filled with many, many, rotating and delightfully haphazard overstock items that replace themselves so quickly, inevitably one may regrettably think, ‘I should have bought it…’

Mainers, you know the jingle.

But my relationship with our town’s local discount shop had been an oscillating one.

And not just because you can buy oscillating fans next to the carpets next to the dog leashes next to the snow pants in said warehouse space.

I have had a years-long aversion for shopping inside stores, namely stores with erratic inventory that require any sort of rifling through of goods.

I became a mama precisely around the dawn of curbside grocery pick-up, a sort of kismet convenience so appreciated that couldn’t have come at a better time, and so I’ve been spoiled in that regard.

Just like that, no more had I the patience nor time for browsing aisles, scouring deals, feeling stifled by the marketing of clutter-some items I just didn’t need.

Online grocery shopping with the painless advantage of pickup without leaving the vehicle is an undeniable luxury – one that keeps me on budget and no longer requires me to lug two shopping carts down all the aisles as I excuse myself to every single shopper ever because I’m taking up all the lanes, only to end each excursion with a double-down Tetris round as I meticulously pack every item back into the cart, then again into the vehicle.

In those days, I ended each grocery shopping run like a flushed, wild-haired Supermarket Sweep contestant, and who had time for that?

No, sir; I’ll keep my curbside pickup just fine.

But back to our local salvage store.

For years, I was less and less enticed to stop in and shop because of its unpredictable merchandise, although I couldn’t help but acknowledge the prices were right, and always had been, no matter the product.

I have family and friends who love their local discount store for this very reason.

Oh what fun for the knitters of my family to browse the skeins upon skeins of yarn galore.

What a glorious feeling for friends who score the name-brand clothing deals. They are the patient ones, and they deserve all the bargains.

Until recently, I only perused this store strictly day after Christmas, because it was a near guarantee I’d find significantly marked down holiday wrapping paper well ahead of budget and next Noel season.

But as of late, fellow mama friends have nudged me along with encouraging assurance that I could score fantastic bargains on school snack hauls – Now that’s a hard one to pass up.

And what hauls I’ve since made off with, indeed.

My family and I recently embarked on a road trip that necessitated road snacks, and I found treats a’plenty at the salvage store for a deal.

Some of the snacks were bigger hits than others; some had mixed reviews, but all cost very little.

So, why are salvage store prices so low anyway?

Often products are nearing their expiration date, dented, damaged, or overstocked.

My favorite finds have been snacks or other food items that may include a promotion for a limited time offer of a movie or other deal that has since expired, but the food item at hand is still perfectly fine.

Items publicizing expired promotional ads such as these won’t be found on traditional retail shelves, so are re-sold for a fraction to the salvage shop.

Food items ranging from dented cans of tomato sauce to frozen foods still safe for consumption but marked beyond a stamped date are also often included in these finds.

As well, company product roll-outs that don’t quite catch on as hoped and produced en masse are often found – I’m looking at you, Hostess SnoBall-flavored coffee pods.

High hopes for sure, but no go.

I can’t stress enough that shopping salvage stores truly requires patience.

I’ve visited mine before with all the intentions of a fabulous snack haul only to return home dismayed with shopping bags empty.

But most recently on a particular shopping trip, I lucked out and walked down a random aisle – a road less traveled, you might say – and was face to face with rows upon rows of name-brand boots.

Garden boots.

I needed garden boots to replace my eleven-year-old beloved purple wellies that had spent more than their fair share deeply embedded in garden muck as my kids and I ran amok.

So beloved were the boots that cracks had formed in various areas, and I’d every intention of duct taping the cracks this year to squeeze out one more garden summer in their faded purple beauty.

And here I was, facing gorgeous replacement boots, a higher-end brand in a dusty rose color, just my size, dreamily comfortable, for an incredible fraction of the cost.

Perhaps the company merely had overshot their expected sales and so sold their overstock to this warehouse.

The world may never know.

But in that moment, these boots were not only made for walkin,’ but made for me.

That’s the satisfaction of shopping salvage in a moment just right.

Had I waited another day, I may have missed the opportunity altogether, and stubbornly spent one more summer in fancy duct-taped glamorous wellies.

So shop salvage with pride.

If you don’t find the knitting skeins you seek, there’s probably a dented stewed tomato can or two waiting for you.

And if you’re very lucky, you can score a fantastic snack haul for your kiddos and super fancy footwear to boot.

And that’s spinning no yarn.

­­– Michelle Cote lives in southern Maine with her husband and four sons, and enjoys camping, distance running, biking, gardening, road trips to new regions, arts and crafts, soccer, and singing to musical showtunes – often several or more at the same time! <

Andy Young: An abs soul loot game changer

By Andy Young

No one, least of all me, can afford to stagnate professionally. That’s why, in an effort to improve myself technologically, I recently decided to try out an “app” (I think that’s what it’s called) which, according to its creator, can sharpen up anyone’s writing, or at least the spelling part of it. Has it helped? You be the judge.

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Here in mane (wear our state animal is the mousse), nun of my previous N gauge mints with pro grams that purr ooze my spelling have been grate. Inn fact, most have provided no ade what sew ever. But to be fare, in the passed I’ve off tin felt blew when matt teary ills that were sup post too uh cyst me never maid any differ rinse. I new nun of those things maid buy technologists were worth N knee thing. In fact, nearly awl of them were waists of thyme and F fort.

I wondered if I had scene the last of my good daze as an edge you cater. I was all ways inn a fowl mood, feeling spiritually baron. Their were times I gist wanted to drop out of site, flea the staid of main, and hit the rode for sum place wear I could S cape the pane of all the sole-crushing tech knowledge gee, fig you ring it wood be good for what ales me. I kneaded a brake, gist to bear my sole (oar, if I whir feeling week, flecks my mussels) in some out door low cay shun wear eye could breathe sum fresh heir. If aye were aloud two, I wood put on a pear of old genes, fined a would den chair, and pro seed two go smell sum flours, swim out to a choral reef, wok in a reign foe rest, sit amongst the reads in a swamp, ore maybe reel axe beneath sum fur and/ore beach trees.

Of coarse, I’d half to tell the prince sip pull at my school, a former banned liter, before I hit the rode, not only to say high, but too let him no wear I was head did, in case he kneaded me. I don’t think he’d mined, butt cents he’s a fare and cay ring person, I’m sure he’d have tolled me knot to overdue things. And weather or knot hour principle mint it, aye bet he wood say I’d be mist bye the wrest of the staph. He’d also wont to make sir tin that I eight rite. I mien, eye sup hose I could all ways gist take an our ore two too visit a soup per mark it sew I could bye myself a thick juice E stake, butt I probably all sew ought to inn jest some hell thee foods, like maybe sum bran serial, a pare, or sum carats, just sew I don’t get the flew.

Eye gist proof red this; there’s knot won sin gull miss steak.

This A Eye is a maze zing! Y eye weighted sew long to try it, I’ll never no. <

Insight: Remembering kindness and tragedy

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

I’m not exactly sure how I became friends with Danny Meyering, but I’m certainly glad I did.

Carlton Webster Junior High School in Henrietta, New York
is where Ed Pierce went to school from 1966 to 1968.
COURTESY PHOTO 

As an eighth grader at Carlton Webster Junior High School in Henrietta, New York in the fall of 1966, I was officially a teenager, and my family had moved to a new community and into a new house where I had my own bedroom. I was attending a public school for the first time at age 13 after many years of being in a Catholic school.

Danny Meyering was a year older than I was and he was always laughing and joking whenever I passed by him in the school hallways. One day in November 1966, Danny and I were assigned to spot other students jumping on the trampoline during gym class. Our job was to stand guard and prevent students from landing awkwardly and bouncing off the edge of the trampoline and injuring themselves.

While doing that he asked who my favorite football player was and when I told him it was Joe Namath, Danny grinned and said, “Mine too.” As the school year went on, he invited me to sit with him and some of his other friends at a junior high basketball game over the Christmas break and I had a blast.

One day over the holidays, Danny walked to my house and my mother made us some lunch. He brought some Marvel comic books with him and after eating, we sat at the kitchen table reading them.

In our first week back to school in January 1967, I noticed a poster outside the school library announcing tryouts for that spring’s school musical “Finnian’s Rainbow.” I thought it would be fun to audition and told all my friends, including Danny, that I was going to try out for the cast. Several classmates told me that afterschool activities were a waste of time, and that I would never be chosen for a part in the musical.

The only one who thought I could possibly win a role was Danny and he took the time to listen to me when I sang my audition song for him “How Are Things in Glocca Morra?” from “Finnian’s Rainbow.” He smiled and gave me a thumbs up even though I was horrible.

On the Friday afternoon of the audition, I was very nervous. Waiting backstage, I was shaking and could barely stand. When my name was called, I summoned my courage and walked out into the spotlight to perform the song for the musical’s director.

It didn’t go well. My voice cracked several times during the song, and I also forgot some of the lyrics. Without a doubt, my audition was one huge disaster, and I wasn’t selected for the cast of “Finnian’s Rainbow” when the list was posted on the auditorium door on Monday.

At lunchtime, I sat in the school cafeteria with Danny, and he noticed that I was feeling dejected about not getting the part. He told me that it really didn’t matter and at least I had tried. His comment made me feel better and helped me get over the disappointment I was feeling for flubbing my audition.

A week or so later in January 1967, a huge snowstorm hit the area, and the temperature hovered near zero. Danny decided to go ice skating at the town park on a school night and walked there with a couple of his other friends. On the way home, a driver ran over them with a car and left the scene. Danny was killed and police were searching for the hit-and-run driver.

The next day at school was terribly sad once the word got out about what had happened. It was like everyone who knew Danny was bewildered and shocked and was trying to come to terms with his senseless death. He was the first friend I had known who had died and it left me angry and confused.

A 18-year-old area resident called police and told them she thought she had hit something when she noticed a crack in her windshield. She was arrested by the police and charged with hit and run. Eventually her charges were reduced to leaving the scene of an accident.

Eventually that school year ended, and another started. My classmates and I moved on to 10th grade at Rush Henrietta High School. Danny’s memory and what had happened to him seemed to fade away for many.

Through the years I have thought about him and wondered what he would be doing today or if he would have had a family of his own if he had lived.

I never again attempted to audition for a school musical and instead, I stuck with performing with the school’s chorus. One of Danny’s friends that he introduced me to, Nick Vecchioli, has remained my friend for more than 59 years now.

The passing of time has not diminished my recollection of Danny’s kindness to me all those years ago and although I only knew him for a short time, I appreciated him for always being positive and a true friend, especially when I needed it most. <

Andy Young: The pros and cons of a healthy walk

By Andy Young

Assuming nothing’s falling from the sky and the temperature is somewhere between 20 degrees and 80 degrees Fahrenheit, nothing is more invigorating than taking a brisk walk.

Few easily performable acts nourish the soul more thoroughly than hiking, striding, moseying, or, for thesaurus junkies, perambulating or locomoting. And that’s regardless of whether the hike, mosey, amble, trudge, perambulation or locomotion is done alone or with company.

Rural lanes, city streets, open fields, sylvan forests or, in case of foul weather, indoor shopping malls, are all fine places for a healthy jaunt. Walking is particularly beneficial for those of us who formerly enjoyed running but currently hesitate to do so on account of a replacement hip or knee joint. It’s also advisable when the surgeon who installed said prosthetic joint has threatened to slay any former patient who attempts to go jogging or heaven forbid, running, and thus put his handiwork at risk.

I’ve long since decided, for a variety of reasons, that going for a walk is preferable to running, particularly since it’s getting harder to find disguises that would fool my potentially homicidal doctor. That’s why, on a recent bright sunshiny, not-too-chilly, not-too-windy Saturday, I decided to treat myself to a hearty stroll. I was in an area encompassing sidewalks, residential areas, a business district, and even a glimpse of the ocean. What could be better?

Since I was by myself, I was a little more observant of my surroundings than usual, which meant I couldn’t help noticing a significant amount of randomly strewn detritus along my chosen route. Apparently those responsible for it had decided they couldn’t be bothered to find a trash can for their gum wrappers, energy drink containers, fast-food packaging and/or cigarette butts, and had opted to heedlessly discard them instead. This sort of totally avoidable blight briefly made my blood pressure rise, but then, reminding myself that the cretins responsible for these miniature eyesores probably make up less than one percent of our local population, I calmly soldiered on.

A few blocks later I came to a crosswalk on a heavily traveled street. Making eye contact with the oncoming motorist, I gave a wave of acknowledgement. Then, to show my respect and gratitude, I quickened my pace, though not into an all-out jog, just in case the driver was my hip doctor. I then resumed my leisurely stroll, satisfied I had shown appropriate courtesy to someone who’d routinely done the same for me.

Approaching another crosswalk moments later, I observed two cars that had stopped for a youthful pedestrian. However, not only did the street-crosser (“streetwalker” didn’t sound right) not acknowledge the drivers who had paused for her, she slowed her already snail-like saunter to a shuffle, her body language suggesting she’d have flipped both drivers the bird if only it didn’t require so much energy to do so.

Shortly after that I arrived at a busier section of town, passing a place of business where seven SUV’s, three trucks, and three cars, all with engines running, were waiting in line to pick up overpriced, over-caffeinated, sugar-laden drinks that were most likely going to be served in containers that take 500 years to decompose. I’m not sure which irritated me more: watching that exhaust-belching line of vehicles inch forward every 90 seconds or so or breathing in the foul hydrocarbons they were discharging. I couldn’t help wondering how many folks inside those vehicles waiting for their fixes proudly describe themselves as environmentalists.

I don’t know the precise age someone has to be to officially qualify as a curmudgeon, but I think I’m closing in on it. <