Christine Franck ventures forth on a quest to walk to FedEx/Kinko’s on a nice Sunday morning. Her harrowing tale is told very well and even has some illustrations, some highlights:
Indeed turning down Bulla Road, a simple, residential street lined with little bungalows was pleasant. After a long dreary Midwest winter the forsythia’s bright, sunny blooms and pastel plastic Easter eggs hung from trees were cheery. Not one car passed me as I walked on the edge of the narrow road. Nor one person.
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Reaching the intersection, I was pleased to see at least a three foot wide grass strip on the edge of the road. Even so, being wedged between four lanes of zooming traffic on one side and a six foot tall fence on the other made me feel I was balancing on the narrowest beam. Not one blade of grass appeared to have been trod before my pioneering footsteps.
Crossing the great divide formed by the entrance, or was it the exit, drive of an old condominium development was a real challenge. The grass path I had been following dead-ended into a four foot deep, two foot tall briar patch of ornamental landscaping.
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Now, I’m pretty good at crossing a busy street. Having learned how to perform the delicate ballet between car, pedestrian, and Vespas while living in Rome, I don’t give crosswalk signals more than a second glance. Being used to zipping halfway across a street, mid-block, and gracefully balancing on the dividing line between passing buses before dashing the rest of the way across a busy New York street, I thought I could handle anything. But this relatively small suburban intersection looked wide as the Grand Canyon.
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As I walked triumphantly across the parking lot to my destination, a small car drove in front of me. I was not surprised to find inside the common suburban species of an obese woman driving her three obese children. They filled every available inch of space inside the car with their fleshy volume.
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Biking in Baltimore