Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Travelogue
Every time I come back to Quincy I feel a little bit like I've stepped back in time, and not just because half the houses here date from the 1890s and there are Civil War reenacters around every corner (warning: do not taunt them, they have muskets). This is, after all, a place where a family of four can still eat dinner for under $20 and the Knights of Columbus Ice Cream Social is still considered a viable form of weekend entertainment. I feel like everything moves more slowly, and that can't be attributed solely to the fact that I sleep until noon and spend my days playing piano and visiting my grandmother while I'm here. It's a quaint little 'burg, and a nice break from my normal agenda of getting elbowed in the groin by fellow passengers on the Brown Line and being screamed at by panhandlers.
I always kind of enjoy my little road trip across the state, too. I like small towns where the Bigfoot is the primary form of industry; even if their restrooms do sometimes have suspicious puddles and less-than-witty graffiti, they have inexpensive Big Gulp stations and a wide variety of beef jerky to suit my travel needs. It's nice to see broad expanses of green (or this summer, greenish brown) after the gray and vomit-beige of the city, too, even if I am only driving through. Sometimes I have the urge to stop the car and go running up into the hills. I haven't, yet, but if I don't show up back in the city next week, well, you know where to look for me. Or, rather, my bloated and partially dismembered corpse. I'm guessing I wouldn't fare well in the wild.
Every time I come back to Quincy I feel a little bit like I've stepped back in time, and not just because half the houses here date from the 1890s and there are Civil War reenacters around every corner (warning: do not taunt them, they have muskets). This is, after all, a place where a family of four can still eat dinner for under $20 and the Knights of Columbus Ice Cream Social is still considered a viable form of weekend entertainment. I feel like everything moves more slowly, and that can't be attributed solely to the fact that I sleep until noon and spend my days playing piano and visiting my grandmother while I'm here. It's a quaint little 'burg, and a nice break from my normal agenda of getting elbowed in the groin by fellow passengers on the Brown Line and being screamed at by panhandlers.
I always kind of enjoy my little road trip across the state, too. I like small towns where the Bigfoot is the primary form of industry; even if their restrooms do sometimes have suspicious puddles and less-than-witty graffiti, they have inexpensive Big Gulp stations and a wide variety of beef jerky to suit my travel needs. It's nice to see broad expanses of green (or this summer, greenish brown) after the gray and vomit-beige of the city, too, even if I am only driving through. Sometimes I have the urge to stop the car and go running up into the hills. I haven't, yet, but if I don't show up back in the city next week, well, you know where to look for me. Or, rather, my bloated and partially dismembered corpse. I'm guessing I wouldn't fare well in the wild.
