Petrified City

(38) Petrified City

What an abysmal, ugly, depressing collapse in waiting.

What a confused and confusing dump of a small town with mental elephantiasis, given there’s anything mental left once freed of the heft sucked out of the atmosphere by all those self important schools.

Why does anyone come here? Why does anyone who comes here stay longer than it takes to work one’s way out of the rat’s nest that passes for a road system?

The only visible use for this city is as a backdrop for horror films.

And in a recent snow “shower” even that’s hidden. Thankfully.

In fact, like many places, a coating of snow goes a long way toward improving things.

Here’s a free idea for those car-painting places or anyone else who wants it:

Forget the cars and spray paint the towns.

Run special promotions on TV. Coupons in the newspapers.

Surely, you can develop a spray booth that’s the size of a city block or two, ship it in a tractor trailer, to be followed by a tanker truck full of the faux snow or whatever color a block wants.

Paint the whole thing. Fold up the spray booth and move on to the next eager municipality.

This will raise some concern among historical society types and maybe some politicians. That’s an easy one to deal with.

Bribe ‘em.

It’s as all-American as…. Traffic jams in the aforementioned rat nest.

For those who favor “organic growth,” consider this: this historic city is busy digging what locals call “the big dig,” a mammoth building project to bring some sense to traveling.

So far, 15 billion dollars into the mission it hasn’t worked. Now, don’t single out Petrified City for a municipal project that doesn’t work. It’s a national pastime, though these guys have gone one better than most other cities.

The cab driver says the thing was supposed to cost four billion, escalated to its present level and in the private sector “…heads would roll.”

He also admitted under intense grilling and with the promise of a large tip on a 15 minute ride in the middle of the night, that “this is one of the most confusing cities in America.” No kidding!

Maybe it looks so downtrodden because the buildings are mourning for the Home Team. Mourning for a happy, winning team that at last broke its World Series losing streak? Sure. Other than that, fans had nothing to talk about except for when they traded some monster player to New York a million years ago.

The trip was capped off with a rousing chorus of “traveling down that lonesome one way highway… the wrong direction.” Living the folk tradition in a historic town without pity, without street signs, without logic and without which we’d all be better off.”

Meantime, anyone have a phone number for Maaco?

I'm Wes Richards, my opinions are my own, but you're welcome to them.

(c) 2006 WJR