BLUNDERING THROUGH THE BUCKEYE STATE
By Rick Sieman
When we last left Carl and Emma, they were chasing rabbits in the great state of Texas. Carl came in second in the Annual Bonzo, Texas Rabbit Hunt and Chili Cook off Festival after running over a huge rabbit in his enormous Suburban.
Disgusted with his second-place prize (a two-week all expenses paid vacation to Santa's Village in Alaska), Carl just wanted to get out of Texas and leave the bitter memories behind him.
They headed east, along legendary Highway 66, on account of Emma wanting to visit her ailing Uncle Howard in Ohio. Carl hated Uncle Howard almost as much as he hated hippies, baton twirlers, modern music and communists.
The reason was simple. Uncle Howard had been dying for 12 years, but
refused to lay down for the count. Carl and Emma had made seemingly endless trips to Ohio only to have Uncle Howard get healthier, surlier and more foul-mouthed than ever. It was only Emma's insistence and the fact that they were mentioned in the will that kept Carl from ignoring the old coot.
The Whale rumbled east at exactly two miles an hour over the speed limit, with Emma knitting away in the passenger seat and Carl perched in the captains chair like an oriental potentate overseeing his subjects.
"What's all that stupid clicking noise about over there, Emma? You makin' me another one of them ugly scarves with a reindeer on it?"
"No, dear. I'm knitting this for poor Uncle Howard. It's got little snowflakes on the bottom, pine trees on the side and a happy face in the middle. I was thinking of adding a itsy-bitsy blinking light right where the nose on the happy face will be, just to make it classy looking."
Carl grunted. "Why waste all that time on Uncle Howard? He's probably going to outlive us all and dance on our graves and spend our inheritance money on floozies and booze. I can't believe that guy ... he's 90 years old, looks like he's 125 and he's outlived four wives. He drinks a quart of Jack Daniels every night, smokes 20 cigars before lunch, eats nothing but bacon fat and hot sausage and drives a World War II Jeep around town looking for accidents. That guy shoulda been dead 45 years ago."
"Now, Carl ... he is family, you know. And he used to buy Girl Scout cookies off of me when I was a little girl."
"And if I remember correctly, you told me he used to dip the cookies into a glass of whiskey and pass out after a dozen or so Thin Mints. That guy is probably from Mars or something."
Carl rolled down the window and ejected a huge brown stream of Red Man tobacco juice on the flank of a startled cow standing alongside the road.
As per usual, another mist of chew juice wafted back on the side of The Whale. Carl fiddled with the CB and said, "Emma, get the road map out and see how far we are from the Ohio state line. There's some good roads goin' in and some roads patrolled by those Fascist Hoopies."
"What's a Hoopie, Carl?"
"That's slang for Highway Patrol, Ohio-style. Those guys will pull you over if you got too much mustard on your sandwich, or if the light in your glove compartment is burned out. One of them gave me a ticket once for having a rusty trailer hitch ball. They must recruit them from axe murderers school."
"Now, Carl. They're just doing their job trying to keep the roads safe."
"Hah! Don't put your arm out of the window if you have a tattoo on it. They'd more than likely bust you for roadside advertising without a permit."
"I'm not the one with the tattoos, dear. You're the one with the anchor on
your forearm and the ship on your chest."
"And I got them honorably, too. Twenty-nine years in the Navy gives a man the right to do certain things. You didn't mention the little tattoo down by my ..."
"Carl! Don't get crude. I'd prefer to not discuss that particular tattoo. I just don't understand you men. My oh my!"
"Aw, quit carping, Emma, and see if you can't get some Willy Nelson on the
radio ... and start reading that road map. Uncle Howard is waiting."
Twenty minutes later, Emma meekly looked up from a stack of maps and squeaked, "Bad news, dear. We have every map except the one for Ohio. Maybe we ought to stop in the next station and buy one?"
"No way. We don't stop unless we need gas or have to make a pit stop. Just keep an eye out for the Ohio state line and my razor sharp memory should
take us on in from there."
Two hours later, they had indeed crossed the Ohio state line and were well and truly lost out in the farmland back roads.
"Carl, why don't we stop in a gas station and ask for directions?"
"No way! You think these local plow boys can find their way past the A & W Root Beer stand without a guide dog? Let's just call your relatives and get some reasonable directions from them."
Uncle Howard answered the phone and started right in. "Lost again, Carl? It's a wonder you can go to the bathroom without a funnel."
Carl fumed. "Look, Uncle Howard. We're in a small burg called Wet Plank, Ohio, and I just want to find the quickest way to your place. Oh sure, I could probably wander down the old Interstate, but I'm on a tight schedule."
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. "Hmmm. There is a short way here, but it'll mean you have to do some of it on the old back roads. Dirt roads. Some of them are pretty screwed up. I wouldn't recommend it unless you're a good driver. Fella could get himself stuck out there."
Carl bristled. "Now you're talkin' my speciality, Uncle Howard. I got a 454 under the hood of my Suburban and big tires and tall gears."
"Hmmmmph. Always been a Ford man myself. Figured anybody who drove a Chevy was a weenie. They named it after a Frenchman, ya know, and they eat snails, and you know how slow snails are, and that's why Chevys are slow. Didn't you learn anything all those years you were in sixth grade?"
"Just cough up the directions, Uncle Howard. And don't worry about me handling the back roads. I got a pencil and paper handy. Fire away."
"Okay. You go east on the main road out of Wet Plank and turn down a dirt road by the first barn you see on the left side with a Mail Pouch sign painted on it. This'll take you out to a highway after about 20 miles and you'll be on the north side of Wind Chill Factor Football Stadium. That's the place where your high school team lost 126 to 3 back in '54. Remember that? And you fumbled eight times in the first quarter and dropped two passes in the ... "
"Just git on with the directions, Uncle Howard!"
"Okay. Then you go past the stadium and make a right on a dirt road next to the burned-down old firehouse by the Texaco station. You go out by this big farm and ..”
