Saturday, April 30, 2022

14,280. HYMAN DOBBIN

HYMAN DOBBIN
Reaching old music, the
Cracker Jacks box is wide
open. Settled levels of
layered pride, with the 
new pictures to match, 
are now being shown in 
close quarters. The lady
cop's raincoat is dry, while 
two hours ago it was dripping. 
More than that I cannot say. 
Was it raining just before? 
Hyman was the guy who 
pointed this out, and I said
'You're quite very conscious 
of time, are you not?

Friday, April 29, 2022

14,279. NOW TO COME

NOW TO COME 
Now to come, have a homespun
meal, the kind with potatoes that
taste like silk. Sit ye down at
this crooked table and dine. We
can sit and talk together, or, if
you'd rather, ignoring me would
be no harm. I am self-satisfied
and could maintain myself, my
presence being faint enough to
border your invisible gleams.
-
It's a tasty morsel I think about;
the way it goes down smoothly,
the sort of meat and gravy that's
only really read of in cookbooks
of might and wealth. Where
others do the cooking.
-
My wine comes out of boxes. I
dream of drinking all night long.
I lap my tongue on the edge of 
the glass I am drinking from.

14,278. I NEVER CLUTCHED AN ICEBERG

I NEVER CLUTCHED AN ICEBERG
The hands that hold April and May
have grown weary of waiting. It
seems it's all too chilly. These days
even the calendars lie. Or belie the
truth anyway, if that's the same thing.
I'm tired of waiting for warmth, and
now despair of any more cold.
-
Perhaps I'm now weak, grown too
old for any of this. Sleet and snow
and frost do tire me. I long for sun
to come perspire me? (That sounds
wrong, but it's right for me).

Thursday, April 28, 2022

14,277. BUT I DID

BUT I DID
Apparently no one else thought
it was odd how  - as children  -  
Santa Claus was presented to us 
in the same light as God. Watching
over us, keeping a list, naughty and
nice, and then rewarding or not
rewarding us for transgressions;
all is if eternity was a new train
set, a bicycle, a doll, or a box of
great candy? Was the redundancy 
inherent in these ideas found to
be necessary? Or was it all just
more of the same weird screen
that was dropped down over
everything?

Wednesday, April 27, 2022

14,276. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,267

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,267
(executioner monk : master of everything)
"It's always been difficult for
me to be anything but what 
I am, and that's always part 
of the problem. People expect
too much. In the same manner
that a wedding invitation arrives
in one's mailbox (people expect
you to munch?), the needed
transformation is off-putting:
inane chatter trying to be heard
over loud, idiot-music, people
who screech and dance like 
their moments were all a'fire.
'This is Great Uncle Hiram, and
here's Terry's Auntie Mame.'
-
Lip-reading has never been a skill
of mine, but that's about all it comes
down too in such a scene. Captain
Blowhard and his wife Giselle can
sure talk your ears to Hell. So, what
is it with people that brings us all
to this crossing? Like a Wedding
At Cana, but without the water and
wine, this Jesus drinks Jim Beam
and falls fast asleep (all the time).
-
You know what else? I hate the
dispossessed, and I have no feelings
for those in need, or those newly
arrived and seeking support. Screw 
them. This country was made for
people already here - like those
Virginia Regents, and any malarky
story I get exposed to by someone
otherwise bleeding at the heart for 
others and for those 'dispossessed'
does nothing for me. I am not of
that ilk. I don't volunteer, and I
don't much grieve for others. I
may be an executioner monk,
and with a story to tell."
-
I leaned back in my chair and
suddenly realized how tired I was.
It was 4pm on some Thursday or
other. I remembered a time when
I could do this stuff, endlessly -
five cups of coffee, the TV blaring,
Eric Sevareid and all that crap-news
blaring  -  "The chief cause of
problems is solutions." Now, some
40 years on, I just really don't care.
-
I sure had traveled a long road,
yet I was convinced that most of
it was meaningless. Church and God
and all that  - yes, I was still sure of, but
now it was all by my own valuations,
and I figured that to be correct, for if
this 'God' who'd (after all) made me
and then tainted me too with original
sin (what a concept!), sought for me
to find a better perfection and a
salvation through 'Him' by the means
given to me, I was surely to be found
among the elect by following my own
path. After all, it wasn't really 'mine'
at all! It was that which was given
me to make from. God knows these
things, right?
-
['Biblical allusions lose all their
certainties in the American air. A
dog is a dog here, barking like 
Robert Johnson.']
-
I was kind of a madman all through
those early years  -  '66 maybe, and
all through the 70's. My last year of
regular high school had me appended
with the name 'Mad Dog' by some
idiot group of senior-fellows with
whom I shared 'Gym'  -  a ludicrous
reversal, surely, of any Greek ideal.
Probably shower-homos, for all I
knew, or cared. The name came, I
was told, from some over-excitement
I was seen doing, like a mad-dog,
in one of those stupid and endless
volley-ball things by which such
Gym classes filled their Winter time.
Evidently I pegged some creep with
a fierce return.
-
Sometimes people get trapped in
ridiculous, (untenable?), situations,
and don't I know. People of eminence,
media stars and politicians (each the
opposite of me), they speak out of
purpose, and they get lynched. Yes,
figuratively, OK but, still...In 'America'
it's presumed, or was, that everyone
has a right to speak, to be heard, to
do as they please, yet, if they say
anything that displeases, the free
mob will lynch them. In this country
the individual ends up having an
abject fear of the dolt next to him,
because they ARE free now to lynch
him the moment he shows he is
not one of them."The American 
voice can only be heard in the
collective stories of those who 
are for some time, no matter 
how brief, pushed outside of 
the definition of American.
The American voice is how 
one responds when silenced
because of who he or she is."

14,275. MY SECRET CRYPTOGRAPHY

MY SECRET CRYPTOGRAPHY
If I place myself against Watson,
that computer by IBM, I still think
I can win (again). The basic root
of my triumph being 'Algorithms
Suck.' Presented with a sentence
to complete, the computer cannot
move as humanly fleet as me.
-
Needing content in which to
swim, its endless overload of
alternatives weighs it down.
The most simple sentence, 
'The car ___ running," cannot 
be done because there is none.
-
Only this human would understand.
through context, whether the car 
IS running, or WAS running. The
computer would not, for it has no
time  -  which is what we use to
underline our being.

Tuesday, April 26, 2022

14,274. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,266

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,266
(don't even go there...)
I feel like I've been everywhere;
Hell, I haven't really been
anywhere, but I feel like I have.
That's the crucial difference,
I guess  -  bounding the real
against the unreal and living it
all together. Fact is, put up 
against any other average
person, I'm beat  -  people I
know have been everywhere:
Poland, Russia, France, England,
Thailand, Iceland, India, Vietnam
and all of South America and
Mexico too. Big deal vacation
romps, cruising the Danube, the
Elbe, or sneaking into Cuba too.
If a person plays the cards right,
it all; becomes doable.
-
I guess that's all something, But
while they did all that, I was
stuck at home. I got around and 
all, but none of it had any glamor,
no panache; just regular and junky
jaunts to places mostly unremarked,
I guess that means unremarkable 
as well.  Finding that none of it 
much mattered except as a means 
of spending the money I wouldn't 
have had anyway, I just let it all 
roll off of me and stayed to task 
as best I could. I got pretty good
at 'doing' one thing at a time, and
with attention to detail, etc., while
yet thinking of a hundred other
things at that same time. The mind
doesn't need a boarding pass, and
that jet is always leaving the tarmac.
-
'Somebody came up to me, they spit
in my face; but I didn't even feel it
was such a disgrace. I broke the
window, smashed my fist right
through the galss  -  but I couldn't
even feel it, it happened so fast.
It was fun, such fun, oh such fun,
such fun...'
-
One time  -  must have been like
1968, Winter  -  in one of those 
all-night diners that used to be
downtown along the old West
Side Elevated Highway, underneath
it, on the sidings and all. Truckers
and whores used them, mostly, and
geeks like me, travelers, cops and
winos. We were sitting in one, me
and a friend of mine, sort of sideways
in a booth, facing each other, looking
out. A few 15 cent coffees and a
hamburger maybe. I forget. The
guy I'm with here, Jim, he's half
shot and tanked already. The coffee
was supposed to help. Black. But he
was too nervous, acting too antsy;
it wasn't working right, and I could
sense that there was something else
going on in his brain right then, 
something harsher, and more
distant. And not good. I'd known
him already long enough to not
want to go through one of his
not-so-courageous acts again, like
rolling someone, stealing a wallet,
or even breaking in and robbing
some stupid dish-rag storefront.
Just then two cops walk in. Big
guys, all in leathers, and overstuffed.
There was no eye contact, thankfully,
because of the way we were seated.
That was good. We'd not been seen.
My impulse was to beat it, and
beat it quickly, get up out of there
and slink out. I certainly hoped Jim
felt the same way. It took a few
seconds, but I saw him change; 
turn another color, come more to
his senses. He quickly took another
gulp of black coffee, after finishing
the beans. I stood, threw 3 dollars
down on the table. And, fortunately
Jim got up wordlessly too. The cops
never even noticed us. Back out in
the cold air, we swiftly walked away.
-
It made me think of cause and effect,
which we'd avoided. And it made me
think of freedom too - whatever that
concept was, I hoped it stayed. I
remembered something from D.H.
Lawrence I'd read, something about
freedom, or being free, but I couldn't
remember it. After I got back to my
hovel, I found the book, and I found
the quote. Odd how it had surfaced
in my brain like that : "Men are free
when they belong to a living, organic,
believing, community, active in
fulfilling some unfilled, perhaps
unrealized purpose. Not when they
are escaping to some wild west. The
most unfree souls go west, and shout
of freedom. Men are freest when they
are most unconscious of freedom. The
shout is a rattling of chains, always was.
Men are not free when they are doing
just what they like. The moment you
can do just what you like, there is
nothing you care about doing.'
-
Everything is prism-like, with many
different sides that cut light into the
needed fragments for all different
colors. You may argue all day over
this or that  -  politics, punishment,
right and wrong, the past and the 
future  -  but you'll get nowhere and
it all ends up being garbage anyway.
Two years later and no one remembers
either the issues or the people in
question. I haven't seen Jim in 50 
years now, and for all I know he 
may be dead, killed by alcohol or 
violence, by his or by others' means.
All definitions have changed, and
all our issues then are non-issues
now. Mostly anyway. Those two 
cops are surely passed on, dead 
from cholesterol or old age. The
waitress, Penny, who was like 40
then and wise as an owlet, would
be 90 plus now  -  and if she is I
wish her well. Me? I'm still stuck
inside the Liberty Bell that keeps
resounding like a sum'bitch
in my head. 


Sunday, April 24, 2022

14,273. MONKEY

MONKEY
My knuckles may not touch the
ground, but I am of another stock:
My eyes are mitre-boxed, and my
hands are ready to grapple. The
maze here holds too many enforced
rules for me to gracefully exit, and
this history knows no bounds.
-
Still I come forth, bleating like a
lamb about a this or that - Skyscrapers
that will not budge; truck doorways
that do not open; a month of miserly
Mondays with no expectation of a
tomorrow at all.
-
The double-yellow line means 'Do
Not Pass," and I shall do my best
here to obey.

14,272. ON A NICE DAY IN SPRING

ON A NICE DAY IN SPRING
On a nice day like today, I putter. 
I've got reams of things to do. There
aren't enough words for me to say
it. Clean the floor and wash the walls?
Is that enough? I walk down to the
rocks to see what Winter has left: a
few new broken limbs and some dead
raccoon a'rotting. Dried out already;
I'll wait for the skull but after the old
flesh is gone. I haven't yet seen any
fish in the water, nor frogs jumping
away. The peepers are pretty much
gone at night now, and the silence is
something better than that. Each footfall 
I take now is crushing something. All
this new growth seems now so impulsive
to grow. There's nothing I can do about
that, and I wouldn't even if I could.
-
My soul realizes things far before me.
I understand only later, how the lazy
buds unfold. How the bees will find
their pollen. And how little  -  really  -
I know about what's going on. 

Saturday, April 23, 2022

14,271. MY OARSMAN

MY OARSMAN
My oarsman was St. Peter, but
he died walking on water. The
Maid of Honor at my wedding
was not Mary Magdalene, but
her daughter, my wife's good
friend. It all went down as was
planned, and we've been married
now near two thousand years.
-
Time passes, yes, that I understand.
But where does the King get his
Kingdom, and where does the 
landsman get his land? These
things have always bothered me.
Twice over, or more, in fact.
-
I go to the new car lot, looking
for something used, and I go to the
used car lot and all they offer is
something new. What am I to do?

14,270. NAMES

NAMES
Jesse James was her brother's
name but I didn't believe her
a minute. Who'd be so stupid
as to have a kid and have that
name go in it? Nomenclature
is one thing, but this is a joke.
-
So I told her that, and then I
mentioned that her mother was
probably a pig and her father
had died on the gallows. On
St. Crispin's Day, no less.
-
She took it all lightly and
laughed. (Probably that
was best).

14,269. THE WHOLE WEEK AND MORE THAN THAT

THE WHOLE WEEK 
AND MORE THAN THAT
I fall and I stumble but I get
back up, and the whole week
is more than all that. Crispx
on the table and I don't know 
what: tumblers of milk and
water? Another jug of beer?
-
If I had to go to one of those
meetings where I need confess,
I still fall down in drunkenness

Friday, April 22, 2022

14,268. PULSE

PULSE
In vainly searching the openings
for light, I realize there are none
here. This Earth is a vapid dispersal
of forms and shadows which just
run on. A magnanimous mixture of
all we assume: miracles of a new
deployment, and villages of treacle
and green. But let me have that
magic, for now. 

14,267. APERTURE OPEN

 APERTURE OPEN
Nothing like this has been
decided before. Precedent
setting, yes, this will be. The
same sort of thing a lawyer
would refer to: The truck that
drove into the river and was
grounded there in mud. Two
people dead. Was the intention
specific, or just an accident that
happened? The jury says the
water is at fault. The judge
declares a mistrial in abeyance.
No sentence is passed.



Thursday, April 21, 2022

14,266. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,265

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,265
(way alone on my other side)
It's difficult, sometimes, to
go backwards or to understand
the value of coming from the
rear, a retrospective view,
of where you have been. I
do it often enough, but many
times all I get are guns in the
east, 1959 Caravelles in the
sky, and dual-headlights on
Rococo styled cars. Not a
wickedly well-put set of
examples, but, you know.
-
When I was young, a lot
of words confused me, and
caught my attention. I was in
a store recently - one of those
'today' stores where now the
messages on the shopping carts
are in two languages, English
and Spanish. The word used
for 'basket,' in the Spanish-use,
was canasta. As a kid, my mother
often said that word, but back then
all she meant was some sort of
card game she'd occasionally
play - ladies were always having
'card parties.' That was another
mystery to me - they'd alternate
the houses, maybe monthly or
every two weeks - I forget -
and the same people would
go to each other's houses for
'card parties.' Canasta was
played some, Maybe there's a
word connection with 'basket'
meaning a specific grouping
of cards? In the same way, all
these weird ladies were always
having 'Demonstrations' in each
other's homes (no, not the 1960's
kinds of 'demonstrations,' which
came later and took to the streets,
not homes) - nights out when
some faux-actress saleslady nobody
would shill for junk jewelry or
makeup kits, blankets and towels
and beddings. The crazed ladies
would fall for it all.
-
Perhaps I just missed a lot; never
knowing much of what was going
on with the loosey-goosey aspects
of newly arrived suburbanites along
their tic-tac-toe rows of new homes
as the 1940's were ending. With all
that came cocktails and fences, cars
and paved driveways. I just never
caught up. And glad for the miss.
-
I was adrift pretty much from the
first days I began to think. The world
made no sense. Period, and that was
all. All those forced polemics about
God and Country just made me ill.
My own pet theory, spoken to me in
a long, post-coma diatribe, was how
all things were just ONE, and Creation
had not been Creation of the 'many'
but instead a sort of founding of 'One
Mind' which could envision all things.
There was no 'checklist' of one thing
after the other that 'God' made, like
that Bible version of a progression
of creation, etc. The only thing 'Made'
was the one essence by which, formed
as Humanity, would accept all things
and allow the possibilities for all other
things to exist. This there was very
little delineation between thought and
matter. All the 'Creator' as Prime Mover
had needed to do was create the 'One'
and thereby allow it to be capable of
acceptance of all conditionals and
peripherals and possibles, and just
set it spinning, all. In other words,
the only thing God had to do was
create something that would accept
everything else - like creation tales,
iron, steel, water, Earth and planets,
mountains, hills, time, experience,
life, sad and happy, regrets, and
death too. The tragic and the flawed.
the happy and the joyous, categories
of 'Good' and 'Bad' - and all would
go on and all would be accepted.
Even the ideas of start and finish,
birth and death. A tree, with a
zillion branches. All things.
-
That was miles, nay, light years,
away from what I was seeing at
age 10. All my other ages too, and
it still is that way. There's a great
divide, and I sometimes seem way
alone on my other side. It was a
wonder to me that I even understood
what people were saying. The didn't
seem to 'mean' anything; they just
talked within categories and rambled
on about eminently useless stuff.
I apparently was expected to buy
into some piece of all that and then
structure my very same life as theirs
around my portion of it. It was all
unspoken too, and it came across
instead as some dark, erroneous
cloud of expectation that somehow
was always crowding me out of
whatever space I was trying to be
in. There truly was no other way
to go but out.

Wednesday, April 20, 2022

14,265. TOO WISE

TOO WISE
Sometimes when I'm rolling
along I think I'm pretty good -
doing this or that as I'm wont 
to do. Other times, I feel no 
better than a worm. But then
I stop myself to think, 'even a 
worm must have its own sort
of perfection, when it thinks
it has reached its ideal of a
worm-hood, slinking along
its miserable ground.'
-
So, in case I'm not thinking
too low of myself, I say that's
for me too  -  having reached
a pinnacle of my own devise.
Wormhood is great, if you don't
think you're too wise.

Tuesday, April 19, 2022

14,264. EASTER

EASTER
So here it all is again, bundled in one
place for all to see. We are living? Why
not He? Or anyway, what's going on?
Hell to pay, is living's cost; he went
there first, they say...of course.
-
I can't any longer shoulder all of this.
One week after the other, and 52 go
by, and there we are again. Right back 
to this. The lethal kiss. The Judas twist.
-
We do the same as well : Over and 
over again. See the dead on the 
streets of Ukraine.

14,263. BYSTANDERS BEWARE

BYSTANDERS BEWARE
In my parody of good intentions
maybe it just comes out wrong.
I don't set out to be a voice of
doom, but those endings come
along : disenfranchised am I, by
both the sun and moon.
-
Here's the other deal : What you
see is never what you get; this
life is a glimmer of but something
else, a pulse of time from another
place, a ridge along the valley of
despair. You can go. I can't be there.
-
Bystanders, beware - of me. 
I only cause confusion

Monday, April 18, 2022

14,262. SEE THE THING IS....

SEE, THE THING IS...
I do not watch propaganda, 
or, as you may call it, news. 
I have my own parameters. 
not really caring, to be truthful, 
if the whole world rots, burns, 
or fades away. Which it will, 
in due time, and hallelujah

Sunday, April 17, 2022

14,261. THE MCCORMAC TOXICOLOGY REPROT

THE MCCORMAC 
TOXICOLOGY REPORT, 
pt. one
"First off, let me state, this is not on me.
I was not here when the High School was
built, and had I been I surely would have
seen to it that it was a warehouse instead.
My presence in office has amassed many
benefits for the citizens here, but this is
not one of them. As the good people of
Colonia will tell you, things are - in the
whole - good. My good friend Cory can
tell you too - from his perch in neighboring
Avenel - the benefits of my time in office:
increased schooling, advanced physical
plants for those schools, new acres of the
artificial grasses and surfaces for recreational
play (that surfacing helps us seal well the
toxic grounds we build upon, thus again
ensuring the safety of your children; your
children should not be subjected to worms
and dirt, as in the old ways of natural play.
We have endeavored to bring forth, with
your tax dollars, better surfaces and
playing fields for all, and have brought
many benefits to the area).
-
That being said, in our increasing outreach
to other sources of growth, we should thank
Jack Morris Developers for the movement
given to us to advance our quality of living
here in greater Woodbridge. Increasing the
housing stock as we have done, by the
inclusion of rows and rows of condos and
improved roadways and traffic accesses, as
well as the inputs of such outside corporations
who have redesigned our towns and lanes. We
could never have achieved this on our own. The
importance of warehousing for the goods and
the products you need cannot be underestimated.
Be sure of that, and be sure that we will never stop
in our quest for increased trucking and storage
of goods here in greater Woodbridge.
-
Of late, the toxicology factor of the lands
where we live have come to the fore. Let
me state again - clearly - this has nothing
to do with me. All we have done is a
cover-up. A cover-up of the old surfaces
with the newer veneer of today. And, besides
that, who knows where truth resides? You
will never get the truth from me."

Saturday, April 16, 2022

14,260. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,264

 RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,264
(these tires tire me out)
I know this is probably hard
to believe, or to understand,
but I've spent an inordinate
amount of time over the years
thinking about tires. Yep. On
vehicles; automobiles. It's
never been a mainstay of my
thinking, but many times my
mind has gone to the subject.
I'll try and explain, and maybe
in my usual, discursive, manner
too. It's not much, but see if 
you can stay with me.
-
I guess it all started long ago,
for me  -  my father used to
haunt the Avenel junkyards,
often buying used tires for
his vehicles. I had to think,
seeing how often he bought
used tires, at what price I
cannot recall, but let's say
(40 years ago) 15-20 bucks
each. He'd replace tires by 
need, maybe 2 at a time. I
had to figure, within the
rotational and replacement
sequence that he'd get out of
the used and short-term tires,
that maybe he'd be better off
just getting new tires at a 4-tire
grouping a and not have to buy
replacements as unevenly and 
as often as he'd end up doing.
-
But I think for him the thrill
came in the small and momentary
savings he'd 'think' he'd made.
Often he'd come back as if he'd
gotten one over on the tire guy
by again getting two for the
30 or 40 bucks. Hard to figure,
but the ruling pleasure principal
of everyday living often has a
form of this for everyone  -  for
some it's a Mulligan on the golf
course, for others it's cheating
or shoplifting. I had two friends,
Joe and Jack, who got their rocks
off  buying a tire and then, in the
yard, with no power tire-equipment,
spending three or four hours with
a crowbar and tire iron, taking off
the old car tire and re-mounting
the new tire on the wheel, properly
setting it and beading it, all again
without any 'power' tool; it's OK
as a kid, doing that in a bicycle
tire, which is a cinch with a tube,
etc., but it becomes a different
story with a full-size car rim;
wheel and tire both take struggle.
-
My approach to the actual 'physical
aspect of tires and the work needed,
is not what I'm talking of (or, writing,
of). It was always more about the
physics, or the dynamics of what
made tires wear. I figured all the
tire and rubber companies had
roomfuls of scientific types doing
the same thinking as me. What
exactly made a tire wear down?
What dynamics were at play. As I 
studied the subject, I realized that
there are numerous variations of
compounds, treads, sidewalls and
loads. That was obvious. Any of 30
different compounds of the rubber
in use could lead (steer) to any of
an assortment of adhesion and wear
factors, dependent on price, quality,
freshness, dry rot,(age) and eventual
breakdown and splitting of the bands
belts and sidewalls of the tire. Heat
and compression took their own tolls.
What mostly interested me was the
dynamics of the tire, on the road. I'd
sit and muse about how and what
contact a 'rolling' tire, in continuous
motion, (forward and at speed) had.
I'd figure it was not much, or for a
faint instant. The roll of the tire, 
forward, made for a limited and
essentially frictionless contact patch?
Did it not. What effect than had the
other factors  -  heat, the stress of 
turning, and speed have? How was
any of that taken into consideration
and factored in? If a contact patch,
even slight, it repeated in the constant
roll of the tire upon the road, to what
steady amount does that accumulate.
A rainy day then allows for no 'friction'
or much less? The factor of the weight
of the vehicle, steaming along on a
dry roadway, with the stress of steer
and turn, aligned with heat, makes
the difference? Does a 'new' tire, with
its rubber, wear less quickly, or more,
than older tires. Alignment, wobble,
braking, and basic steering, what do
they add to nay of these factors? At
some point is an equilibrium reached?
-
Yes, yes, I'm boring you, and it all
could go on, but I wanted to show the
process involved. I had a friend, for a
long time, who was an 'accident-scene
investigation' policeman; always at the
ready with tape measure and micrometer
and all those items need to measure skid,
impact, and resultant crash momentum.
Tire tread, in thirty-seconds of an inch.
Sideways momentum; speed, erratic
driving. Tires. Tires. Always tires.
-
One time, in Princeton, a long time back,
the place where now are stores and an 
Italian deli called D'Angelo's was once
an old parking lot. It had a barbarous
reverse-tire spike strip to prevent people
from backing through, or exiting out
of the entrance. It was relentless in its
automatic zeal to take out two tires at
a time. Suffer those who got caught by
it. Instant flats. Now the cops can stop
pursuit by halting the fleeing auto with
the same spike-strip idea, simply placed
along the roadway where the perp is
expected next. Too bad on that count;
tires again. Security and police, etc.,
I have seen, with puncture-less tires,
unable to be compromised by bullet,
shot, or cannon. It's all tires, even if
the car is electric.
-
I decided, somewhere along the way,
that - much like life - tire wear is the
result of a cumulative scraping. It builds
upon itself, and it's not as if a person is
scraping a piece of rubber along the
ground, (though it is), but more that
the accumulation of all those rolling
and momentary contacts, even with
the rolling of the tire making the
moment of contact trivial, the wear
accumulates, the treads wear down,
and the tire, soon enough, is scraped
away to nothing. Now there's a cheery
thought for sure.