The Coonridge Digest: Country traffic

Greetin’s from the Ridge.

My cousin Eunice called from St. Louis. "You see what I’m telling you, Freida? You don’t know how lucky you are!"

She was referring to the annual study done by the Texas Transportation Institute. Their survey found that sitting in traffic has become a headache in growing number of American cities. In 1982 there were five cities where drivers were delayed at least 20 hours a year. Now that number has risen to 51 cities, including such once-drivable places as Colorado Springs and Salt Lake City.

She told me, "You folks in Coonridge just get in your car and go wherever you want. You never have to allow time for traffic because there isn’t any."

I suppose Eunice had a point. A PBS film crew once spent an early Sunday morning on my porch filming a special about our town’s Burgoo soup. The cameraman kept looking away from my highly instructive lecture on the delights of slicing carrots and peeling potatoes to look down the Coonridge Main Street. Finally the director shouted, "Cut! What are you doing?"

The cameraman turned to him and said, "Sorry. But I’ve never seen a street that was completely empty. It’s been ten minutes and all I’ve seen is a dog!" Then he turned and filmed the empty street, mesmerized by our town’s lack of gridlock. Heck, it’s lack of anything.

I guess Eunice was right. The Texas study said that in the bigger cities, the typical commuter spends a yearly average of day tied up in traffic. If I have to wait ten seconds for somebody to turn in front of me I get irritated. But just so my city cousin won’t think life is completely idyllic out here in the sticks, I sent her the results of the Coonridge Transportation Institute. Here are just a few of the pithy findings:

The Tractor Factor: I have driven in both Chicago and Los Angeles and never once did I come up behind a John Deere towing a 16-row planter or a combine with a 21-foot grain head.

Unless you’ve experienced the thrill of rounding the top of a rural hill and coming nose to bumper with a sea of John Deere green that seems to stretch from Kansas to Indiana, you just don’t know what it’s like to drive in the country. We have some local farmers who drive rigs the size of a Guatemalan village. I’m not complaining. That big green machine is what keeps our local economy pumping, but while my city friends face gridlocks that may stretch for miles, a country road gridlock can completely obliterate the sun.

The Deer Fear: When Bambi first hit the theatres in 1942, it was a lovely movie, but deer in the Midwest weren’t so plentiful and the cars didn’t go much past 40 mph. I doubt that the animators at Disney Studios had ever had a 225-pound buck try to broad jump their Pontiac. I hate to wait in traffic but I’ll take my chances trying to scooch over onto the off ramp any day, rather than face a white-tailed deer intent on becoming a part of my car’s upholstery.

Yes, there are idiots aplenty who’ll go zipping along country roads with no thought of deer innards on their headlights, but the more cautious Midwestern pulls into his driveway and has his wife un-pry his tensed hands from the steering wheel. Disney had it wrong. Bambi’s mother didn’t have the death wish of today’s deer.

The Chat Splat: Roads in the city are for one thing: getting somewhere. The streets of a small town are merely an extension of the sidewalk and the coffee shop. If I meet a friend driving in my direction and we both decide to stop our vehicles and chat, then …well, that’s why God made sidewalks. Drive around. We’ll wave to say, "Thanks," and you’ll wave back signaling "no problem." Of course, if you’re busy adjusting your groceries in the back seat, then what we’ve got is an expensive case of chat-splat.

Unfortunately, the insurance companies still don’t have this one figured out and they’ll blame the parked chatter instead of the grocery sorter.

At least in the country we’re so far free of road rage. Chances are that the fellow blocking the road with his field cultivator is your uncle, we know that the deer can’t help being the dumbest animals on earth, and whiplash is a small price to pay for a really juicy bit of gossip.

Go ahead and spend your hours stuck in traffic. At least when I’m stuck, I’m in the country.

You ever in Coonridge, stop by. We may not answer the door, but you’ll enjoy the trip.