"Thank God I'm A Country Boy". The lyrics to a song by John Denver. But yesterday I realized how true these words are to me.
I drove thru a large city and found myself almost in panic mode from the traffic. Seems everyone was in a huge hurry to go nowhere, and I cant even begin to describe the rudeness of many drivers. The major freeway came to a sudden end, where there were multiple off-ramps, with poorly labelled signs, which appeared too late, giving me about 10 seconds to decide which of the 4 or 5 ramps to take. while vehicles zoomed past me at a high rate of speed, then all having to slam on their brakes as they exited one of these ramps. I had to take one of them, and of course I took the wrong one, taking me East when I had wanted to go West.
Either way, I was glad to be off that freeway, where I had a few red lights to allow me to calm down my nerves a bit, while surrounded by large city buildings with people moving around like ants on an ant-hill. At this point I was clueless where I was going, but decided to just attempt to get my car out of the downtown part of the city, then manuver it onto a road going West, and with some luck, get on some street that leads me out of that city as quickly as possible.
I managed to *somewhat* do this, and got onto a road that appeared to be one of the major streets thru the city. Finding an open gas station, I pulled into their lot and tried to get some gas. After putting the nozzle in my tank, I heard a voice saying "you must pay first". Geezzzz, I never have to do that at home, and did not know how much gas would fit in my tank, but I walked to the pay window, and saw a guy behind a very thick glass window. He spoke to me form a speaker and told me to put my money in the slot. I stuck $10 in the slot and he told me to go pump my gas, in some dialect that appeared he was not very fluent in English.
I had intended to ask the guy what roads/streets to take, but I decided this was not the guy to ask. (No, I dont have a GPS, nor did I have a map for that state).
I pumped my gas, which stopped the pump at exactly $10, and drove away. A few miles up that street, I saw a Walmart store. While I'm not an avid Walmart shopper, it was nice to see a place I recognized, and had wanted to stop at a store to buy a few snacks to eat while I drove. I pulled into their parking lot and got out of my car. I had not even taken two steps toward the store, when some filthy looking guy, who looked like he had been drunk and on drugs for a month or more, walked right up to me and said "can you help me?". I quickly responded "NO", then he began telling me how bad he needed help, and I told him if he needed help, to call 911, as I walked to the store.
In front of the store, there were 2 city police cars parked. There was a guy passed out on the sidewalk, and another guy leaning over a garbage can, with a pile of vomit on the ground in front of him. I entered the store, and to my left was a booth, which said "Police Dept". A cop was in there, and another was telling a woman ahead of me she had to check in her packages. I stopped for a moment, and thought about asking one of those cops some directions out of the city, but then I thought to myself how insane this all was. At that same moment, I realized that I really did not need those snacks as badly as I thought. I turned around and went back to my car, and drove away.
I did manage to eventually get outside of the city and into a suberb area where things seemed a little more "normal". I found another das station where there was a person who could actually speak English, who told me which way to go. I did as they said and escaped that insanity.
How people can live in those insane big cities is beyond me. Maybe it's their living conditions that cause them to take drugs and drink, because it's the only way to escape that concrete jungle. And those cities must spend a fortune on police protection, if they have to have full time cops at Walmart. I find it hard to believe that places like that even exist in the USA, in this age of technology...... VERY HARD TO BELIEVE!
All I know, is that there is no amount of money that would get me to live in a place like that. I may lack high speed internet, and decent access to stores, and may lose my electricity for an entire day after an ice storm, but I'll take those inconveniences any day over what I saw in that city. Where I live, my closest neighbors all have four legs, and that's just fine with me.
Thank God I'm A Country Boy! (Well, maybe not *boy* at my old age).