October 24, 2001

City traffic test for country mouse

By GARRET LEIVA
Herald editor
       After dodging potholes capable of swallowing Pontiacs and getting caught in sticky traffic jams, the country mouse has returned home.
      Taking a road trip this weekend to see my wife's city mouse brother, I remembered why the dictionary entry for defensive driving says: "see Detroit." Whether downtown or expressway, driving near the Motor City is Darwinian survival at work. Which might explain the late model Oldsmobile I saw without wheels on the side of I-94.
      Even bumper stickers proclaiming: "Keep honkin'... I'm reloading" and "Don't tailgate me or I'll flick a booger on your windshield" seem like more than idle threats.
      Admittedly, I grew up next door to the country mouse's house in a hamlet on Michigan's sunrise side. It was a place where you actually said things like "going into town" - as if it were a four-day ride by horse drawn wagon. There were no such things as rush hour traffic or commuting to work. Although one winter several people from the bank- including my uncle the president- rode in together on their snowmobiles.
      Growing up in a small town meant traveling 30 miles to find a place to practice parallel parking during driver's training class. The same held true for stoplights; until 1988. I remember skipping out of school the day the stoplight was installed at Esmond and M-65 just to sit at a red light.
      Going off to college a year later meant big changes, including multiple stoplights. Over the next four years, I received a degree in English and an education in expressway driving. I also developed a bad case of lead foot - which miraculously healed after paying a $100 speeding ticket. Despite my lighter touch on the accelerator, I could still change lanes without signaling and tailgate with the worst of them.
      However, no amount of bad habits can prepare you for Detroit area driving. People eating Big Macs while steering with their knees. Side-by-side driving that would make Rusty Wallace let off the gas. Mix in tie rod bending potholes and you have the set location for "Driving Miss Daisy ... to Hell."
      Actually, our Sunday drive was more like "The Road Warrior" meets "Cannonball Run" with bonus footage from "Death Race 2000." The highlight was watching an exiting semi truck take a chunk out of a Mercury and both vehicles kept rolling right along. Evidently, the semi's driver had seen "Duel" one too many times.
      I guess, like prolonged exposure to X-rays, you become numb to the four lanes of chaos. My city mouse brother-in-law honks, swerves and swears all without spilling his coffee during his daily commute into Detroit. Which is funny, because he and I grew up in the same one- stoplight town.
      Although I technically live in a city, (after all it is the word that follows Traverse) in many ways I'm still a country mouse. Truth be told, I don't have the drive to be a metro mouse - I eat my Big Macs at red lights.
      Grand Traverse Herald editor Garret Leiva can be reached at 933-1416 or e-mail gleiva@gtherald.com