November 17, 2005
One man's junk
I was heading north on U.S. 27 this morning on my way to Chickamauga, and as I was coming out of the 45 m.p.h. zone on the hill in Rock Spring I was in the left lane behind two other cars. They had, like myself, begun to speed up and then suddenly slowed and drifted to the left. I couldn't see what was going on, and the impatient driver in me reacted by veering right to pass them, only to be greeted by a decrepid push mower at 12 o'clock. I ran straight over the thing going about fifty, and man did it make a clunk! I looked to my mirror and saw it spinning and tumbling with bits flying off of it. Fortunately no other vehicle was immediately approaching it, but it came to rest still in the middle of the road.
My first concern after the initial shock wore off was the condition my truck might be in after having mowed down haha a 50 lb. solid steel block on a metal saucer with a huge handle. I didn't look to see if any one was stopped and trying to recover the now-even-more-of-a piece of shit, but what kind of dumbass doesn't see losing that off the back of his Pinto?
I rolled on because I had an appointment but was looking in the mirror for a fluid trail and checking my gauges for abnormalities that might be caused by any number of things that could have been severed by that thing. Brakes OK, accelerates fine, so there. I dialed up the GSP to tell them about the hazard and when I got to hte part about running over it the guy on the line goes, "Oh man, you HIT it?" I explained I was in a 4WD truck with skid plates on the undercarriage, and that there didn't seem to be any initial damage. He said he would have a patrol car and the GDOT come and get rid of it. More to be folksy than from any anticipation of recompense I said, "If you happen to find out who the owner is I might have a repair bill to send him."
Later I was able to check under the truck. In the back there was some dirty oil that was (I hope) from the mower and in the front a couple of substantial dings in the front skid plate. If it had been any other kind of passenger vehicle that had hit that thing it would not have been pretty.
On a more uplifting note, congratulations to Beelers on his brush with coolness. Hunter Thompson fans check out his blog for Tuesday, November 15: www.beelers.org
My first concern after the initial shock wore off was the condition my truck might be in after having mowed down haha a 50 lb. solid steel block on a metal saucer with a huge handle. I didn't look to see if any one was stopped and trying to recover the now-even-more-of-a piece of shit, but what kind of dumbass doesn't see losing that off the back of his Pinto?
I rolled on because I had an appointment but was looking in the mirror for a fluid trail and checking my gauges for abnormalities that might be caused by any number of things that could have been severed by that thing. Brakes OK, accelerates fine, so there. I dialed up the GSP to tell them about the hazard and when I got to hte part about running over it the guy on the line goes, "Oh man, you HIT it?" I explained I was in a 4WD truck with skid plates on the undercarriage, and that there didn't seem to be any initial damage. He said he would have a patrol car and the GDOT come and get rid of it. More to be folksy than from any anticipation of recompense I said, "If you happen to find out who the owner is I might have a repair bill to send him."
Later I was able to check under the truck. In the back there was some dirty oil that was (I hope) from the mower and in the front a couple of substantial dings in the front skid plate. If it had been any other kind of passenger vehicle that had hit that thing it would not have been pretty.
On a more uplifting note, congratulations to Beelers on his brush with coolness. Hunter Thompson fans check out his blog for Tuesday, November 15: www.beelers.org
