September 6, 1996
Dear Everyone:
This week’s letter
is a tad late because the gods of transportation were not smiling on the
Bay Area
this last Wednesday. First
there was a woman who, for reasons best known to herself (and, by this
time, the coroner), chose to drive 55 mph into the
Caldecott Tunnel
(a major thoroughfare) going east at a time when the rest of the world
was going west. This did not
affect me personally, since I took BART
into the City
on Wednesday (Wednesday being a “designated San Francisco day”).
Next, a water main
burst, causing the closing of the approach to
SF International Airport.
Scores of people walking to the terminal in an effort to get to their planes.
Another good reason to plan on getting to the airport at least
one day before your flight time.
Again, this did not affect me because I was working in San
Francisco.
Then, at
approximately 4:00 pm, a woman decided her best move was to jump
directly in front of an oncoming BART train at the Montgomery Station.
This did affect me,
along with thousands of other BART patrons, as they immediately closed
down the station. Not that I
knew right away what was happening.
But when you leave your office at 4:30 and see people pouring
out of a BART station, you
don’t have to see the giant tentacles coming up the escalator to realize
that it’s a serious case of “This is not good”.
Definitely not good.
Without going
through a lot of gory details, suffice to say that it took me 2-½ hours,
including a $7 taxi ride from one BART station to another, to get home
Wednesday night. (It took
the taxi 30 minutes to go 7 blocks on Market Street.
Definitely not good.)
This left very little time for letter-writing.
Nor was I in the mood to write anything printable.
So I called Mother instead.
Mother and Dad are fine.
Next in the news...
I saw on TV the
other night that we’ll be bracing for a fresh Attack of the Dreaded
Auction People today. About
once a month or so, the Alameda County Auction (“not affiliated with
Alameda County”) holds an auction of previously-owned cars.
Most of these cars are ones that were repossessed by banks and
other lending institutions.
Some were confiscated from suspected drug dealers.
(The RICO act
makes it legal for the police to steal your car if they can prove that
they thought you might be
dealing in drugs.)
These auctions are
held on Saturday, with a preview the Friday before.
That would be this Friday, as in today.
Why does that concern us?
Because the Alameda County Auction (“not affiliated with Alameda
County”) is right next door to the “Livermore” warehouse.
In fact, you can see the warehouse in the background in the
commercials on TV.
And where do the
people who come to preview the cars they might buy park the cars they
already have? In our parking
lot, of course, because it’s right next door.
They’re only supposed to park on the side nearest the Auction
yard, but there’s always somebody who figures if he can afford to buy a
drug dealer’s car, he can park wherever he darn well pleases.
Ordinarily our
parking lot is fairly wide open as regards parking places, roughly 3-5
spaces for every car. Except
on Auction preview Fridays and on Sundays.
On Sundays the Church People park in our parking lot.
These are the people who attend services at the church which is
just on the other side of the Auction yard.
We don’t mind them in the least because a) they’re very polite
and well-dressed; and b) we don’t generally work on Sunday so we don’t
even see them.
Actually, this
parking lot is something of a Mecca for parkers and roller skaters.
Huge trucks appear out of nowhere.
Even the “Livermore” police park their cars there while they do
their in-car paperwork. And,
as for the roller skaters, explained by “Ford”, who was chasing them off
the property, we have “the best asphalt in town”.
Well, no wonder. It’s
because we won’t let anyone else use it.
Movies...
Saw
Tin Cup
last Saturday.
Kevin Costner
is back to playing semi-athletic types, which really seems to be his
niche. He plays a golf pro
from somewhere in the middle of Texas who figures he can get the pretty
lady if he can just manage to win the
US Open
golfing tournament. Of
course the idea is ludicrous, but then, so is golf.
It goes on a little longer than it needs to, probably a metaphor
for golf as life, or something.
It’s actually a light romance set against the world of golf and
I’m sure there were a lot of inside jokes that sailed right over our
heads. But we enjoyed it.
And if you watch the
closing credits carefully, you’ll see that the
Humane Society was keeping a close watch on the filming.
So that pelican was never in any real danger.
Love, as always,
Pete
PS.
I’ll be on a business trip all next week, so no Letter.
Sorry.
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