Scattered, Smothered and Covered Up in Traffic

         

God Help Us

   Living in the Atlanta area for the last three years, I have been exposed to some of the worst traffic in the nation. The mega growth in the 80’s and 90’s created a metropolis with a handful of bedroom communities that now total over 5 million in population. Some experts predicted that by 2025, Atlanta and Chattanooga would be one gigantic megalopolis. At one point in 2003, Henry and Forsyth Counties were in the top 5 for population growth in the nation. These counties were mainly rural and the owners of the land were happy to sell their acreage for a premium price and move to St. Simons Island, a popular destination for the rich and shameless here in Georgia. Subdivisions were constructed in record time, red lights were installed on what used to be dirt roads, and mortgages were thrown around like candy. This property was prime because it was close enough to Atlanta to get to work but far enough away that new residents did not experience the hustle and bustle of city life. With this influx of human beings, the interstates in the metro Atlanta area have become parking lots from 3:00 – 8:00 in the afternoon on weekdays. It is absolutely maddening.

Once, when I was in college, it took four hours to get from Athens to Cassville.  A water main busted on one highway in Cobb County and that sealed the fate of the entire metro area. See, since they are all connected, it set off a giant chain reaction. I turned my truck off on I-285 and sat on the tailgate for 45 minutes. The water main that busted was thirty miles away. The same thing happens when people have fender benders, flat tires, the DOT is surveying land, or a squirrel is slain in the right lane and its lifeless body remains on the interstate. Everybody has to stop and gawk like they have never seen a dented quarter panel.

"Y'all Ain't Doin' That Right"

            The DOT is another issue. Have you ever watched them? One guy operates a jackhammer while ten others stand around smoking cigarettes telling that guy what he is doing wrong. They take three hour lunches. They don’t work when it rains or snows. They get paid handsomely to do this. They also decide to “work” when it is the least convenient time. Need a road paved? I-85 and Pleasantdale? That is in Gwinnett County, Georgia, population 700,000. Let’s start at 2:30 pm on Friday! Here come the orange and white barrels for thirteen miles, a speed reduction, a closed left lane and forty five steamrollers, forty two of which will likely never move. Remember folks, you paid for those steamrollers too. Then we all get to sit in traffic for hours while one guy works for ten minutes and takes a break. Another guy cranks a steamroller, realizes that the wind picked up 10 mph and switches it off, claiming that the potential erosion of topsoil supercedes the necessity of his labor (well, imagine a Georgia twang and more four letter words). Then a “bossman” comes out, stands around surveying the situation for about fifteen minutes, talks to some guy named Randy on a Nextel phone and then leaves for the rest of the day. All of this worthlessness takes about two weeks and completely destroys the afternoon commute.

            The installation of red lights is another sore spot for me. I have no idea what person(s) are responsible for the decision making process, but they are right there with the guy who thought it was wise to bring kudzu to the United States and the other guy who thought the Ford Edsel should be sold to the public. These are the guys who take four hour lunches, are never in their offices and their phones always go to voice mail. In Bartow County, there are several intersections that desperately need red lights. You know, the ones where if a wreck happens, the EMT’s will have to remove the victims from the asphalt with a sponge. There must be an unwritten rule, a magic number of deaths and injuries that must occur before the DOT will act. On the contrary, there are some red lights that are inexplicable. The ones where you could literally get out of your car, build a bonfire and dance around it in a loincloth and be back in your car before the light changed and nobody would see you.  In fact, last year, a red light was removed in downtown Cartersville because so many people complained about its uselessness. When have you ever heard a red light being removed? It had been installed only a year before, in an area that had not changed in years, replacing the four way stop that was working just fine. Meanwhile, another motorist is torn apart crossing five lanes of traffic by another going motorist going 60 miles per hour downhill on Main Street between Starbucks and Publix. Leave it up to the Georgia DOT.

 The Untimely Death of my Waffle House

  I also blame the DOT for the dilapidation and decline of my exit on I-75. For years, the exits on I-75 were in numerical order. Exit 1 was at Lake Park, Georgia near the Florida line and the last exit was in Rocky Face, Georgia, on the Tennessee state line. My exit was #127. I call it “my exit” because I spent so much time at the Waffle House there, that I actually became a squatter. Seriously, I could have challenged ownership of that area on grounds of adverse possession and probably had a fighting chance.

That Waffle House is one of many sources of awesome memories from my childhood. I remember one night, my parents, my brother and I decided to make it a Waffle House night and crammed ourselves in a booth at about 9 PM. The place was absolutely full of people and most of them appeared to drive a truck for a living. You can always tell a truck driver apart from others, they always have that “been up all night” look. That is not an affront to truckers at all, that is a hard job and absolutely necessary to our economy. Anyhow, we had just ordered when one of the truckers went to the jukebox put in one single quarter. When you only put in one quarter, you already know what you are going to play. He entered the three digit code and returned to his seat with his coffee. Seconds later, a sad saxophone and Bob Seger’s raspy voice began to play over the speakers. “Turn the Page” is a staple of Waffle House jukeboxes everywhere. As Bob belted out the first few words, the truckers all seemed to tap their feet or nod their heads in time. Before we knew it, as the chorus came on, they were all singing along to the top of their lungs, especially the line, “there I am, up ooooooooon the stage!” Men who did not know each other, from different states and walks of life, were singing Bob Seger together in a Waffle House in Cassville, Georgia on a summer night at 9:15 PM. As the song ended, they all laughed and shook hands and high fived. Everybody finished their meals and went their separate ways with coffees to go. It was a nice moment.

That particular jukebox was wonderful. I had a lineup that I played each time I went. “Come Monday” by Jimmy Buffett; “Hold on Loosely” by .38 Special; “Hotel California” by The Eagles; “Ramblin’ Man” by The Allman Brothers and whatever the best country song on the board was at the time. It was often a George Strait song. The 90’s had some good country that was popular, and on the contrary, there were also some god-awful travesties that found their way onto that jukebox. One of which was “Indian Outlaw” by Tim McGraw. Lots of people thought this song was great, judging by the number of plays it received. I think this may be the worst song ever. My usual waitress, Sharon, thought it sucked too. When it would come on, she would roll her eyes and take a cigarette break. Not only were the words to the song unfathomably ridiculous, he mixed in a few lines from “Cherokee Indian Reservation” by Paul Revere and the Raiders to go ahead and insure that the song would be terrible. I guess anything worth doing, it’s worth doing right. Congratulations, Tim, for ruining my hash browns and coffee for at least six months in 1995.

Back to the DOT, they decided in 1998 that our exit numbers should be changed. They were going to number them according to the mileage between each exit to help travelers gauge their distance and time more efficiently. Soon thereafter, crews of men were all over I-75 taking down the old signs and replacing them with shiny new green markers with our new numbers. I should have gone out there and offered them a hundred bucks for our sign. We went from #127 to #296, which meant we were exactly 295 miles from Exit #1 in Valdosta. Consequently, our exit also became a target for new truck stop construction. A Pilot station and a TravelAmerica station opened within months. A Comfort Inn, a seedy bar and an adult video store followed. The entire area went downhill quick. My Waffle House, which had stood in the same spot since 1974, serving our community faithfully all those years, closed. They could not compete with 24 hour Taco Bell, Burger King, Subway and McDonald’s, a recession, and the health food craze that scared off fringe customers. The building now sits, boarded up, with weeds in the parking lot and graffiti on the plywood over the windows. Every now and then, a broken down car will be sitting in the parking lot. When I first saw it, I could not believe my eyes. I called my brother in Oxford, Mississippi to deliver the sad news. He sat silently on the other end of the phone for a good ten seconds. He and I spent a lot of time there, especially when I started driving, and now it was gone. It all started when the DOT changed the exit numbers. We had our own number and we were just fine. When we became a mere mile marker, the whole thing went to hell in a handbasket. The county cops basically live out there now, serving arrest warrants at the cheap hotels, where drug dealers pay for rooms by the week so they can peddle their poison to the other trash that live there. The DOT had to install two red lights due to the heavy traffic on the exit, but they were too lazy to install left turn lanes to get back onto the Interstate, so when a tractor trailer turns left to get back on I-75 at the usual snail’s pace, you completely miss the green light.

So, in short, prior to 1998, we had three gas stations (American owned), a Red Carpet Inn, a Waffle House and no red lights. In 2010, we have seven gas stations(who knows who owns any of them now?), a Red Carpet Inn and a Comfort Inn, a bar, an adult video store, Taco Bell, Burger King, McDonalds, Subway, Popeye’s, Country Pride Restaurant (the TravelAmerica 24-hour joint), two red lights and no Waffle House. Progress? Not hardly. All it has brought is the disappearance of an institution, traffic, crime and a collection of low rent people strung out on drugs who spend their welfare checks on lottery tickets and beer. The DOT can kiss my scattered, smothered and covered ass….127 times.