NASCAR rush-hour

Linda’s chemo treatment (Rituxan) at Wilmot Cancer Center in Rochester was at 8 a.m. this morning (Monday, October 1, 2007), which meant we got to participate in NASCAR rush-hour.
When I pulled out of the driveway a navy-blue Civic was at least a half-mile away up the road, yet despite my laying rubber pulling out, and flooring up to speed, within 100 yards the Civic was on my rear bumper, glowering driver angrily thumping his steering-wheel.
Which of course begs the question of how fast this guy was actually going — the speedlimit is 40 mph.
We then together drove the long 15-mile trip to the expressway, but the Civic never passed. Sometimes he’d fall behind, but other times he rode my bumper.
Elz, of course, will relate that traffic up here isn’t traffic; nothing like south Floridy. —Which it probably isn’t. Highways here don’t become parking-lots.
But south Floridy doesn’t compare to Boston, where I was doing 65 mph bumper-to-bumper with other cars on the shoulder.
They even had signs on how to use the shoulder, as if authorities had acquiesced.
And northern Delaware is unfamiliar too.
When I was young, Concord Pike was four lanes.
Now it’s six; with not just single dedicated left-turn lanes, but double.
Concord Pike is probably moving four times as much traffic, yet driving it wasn’t frightening.
Considering turning-volume, individually-signaled double left-turn lanes make sense.
But none of these are like the Los Angeles basin, where I-10 was 14 lanes wide, with giant Hummers cruising at 100 mph in the zipper-lane.
And then there was ancient Hollywood Freeway. On-ramps so short they had traffic-lights.
How those lights worked I’ll never know.
Once I had to drag-race our humble rental Corolla just to barge into traffic.
So here we are on the I-390 expressway, headed into Rochester, bucketing along cheek-to-jowl at about 20 mph over the limit.
Sullen REPUBLICANS make sudden unsignaled lane-changes in their giant black Expeditions.
After they complete their lane-change, they flip on their turn-signal for a cycle or two: the old REPUBLICAN waazooo — lunge first, signal later.
GrandPaw drifts his beige metallic LeSabre halfway into my lane on a gentle turn. I was fixing to pass. Nope; tap the brakes. (Probably didn’t even know he did it.)
GrandPaw drifts lazily back into his lane. No Dubya-sticker, but 89 bazilyun “Support Our Troops” ribbons, plus a black MIA-ribbon saying “Missing-in-Action never have a nice day.”
Finally the navy-blue Civic passed, at which point I saw it was a Hybrid.
But I must have got ahead of him again, despite all the drivers running red-lights, as he fell in behind again at the hospital.
Driving home was no longer NASCAR rush-hour — I was driving away from Rochester.
A N.Y. state-trooper had pulled over a southbound non-participant. Red light-bar flashing atop his idling navy-blue Crown Vic, I wondered what that was all about.
Um, the miscreants are headed the other way.
Tomorrow’s appointment is at 9 a.m., which misses NASCAR rush-hour by about an hour.

“Linda” is my wife of nearly 40 years. She has lymphatic cancer. (It’s treatable.)

“Elz” is my sister Betty (Elizabeth). She’s second after me — soon to be 62 (I’m the oldest at 63). She lives in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. My other two brothers, both younger, live near Boston, and in northern Delaware, where I lived as a teenager. “Concord Pike” in Delaware (U.S. Route 202) was the main drag nearest where we lived.

A “Dubya-sticker” is a Bush-Cheney 2004 bumper-sticker. All insane traffic-moves seem to involve Bush-supporters. They seem to think they have the right.