The Tar HeelThursday, June 1 , 198919
Opinion
How to
This column should probably be
subtitled "Why you should never take
a road trip with me." The answer is
simple. I claim to know everything
about a city even if I've only visited
it once in my life, even if it was
when I was in second grade on a
field trip to study rock formations
outside Monroe. I claim to have a
directional photographic memory,
meaning I can travel down a road
once and remember it for the rest of
my life, even if I don't go back for
50 years. And, as Roseanne Barr is
fond of saying, I can "conceive of
one inch equalling a hundred miles."
Maybe that's why I got hopelessly
lost in the middle of Washington,
D.C., Friday night
Yes, it was a road trip weekend, a
weekend with a purpose but a week
end to relax, do some sight-seeing,
send some postcards and get seri
ously bent.
It was a weekend for me to get as
rude, crude, lewd and obnoxious as
humanly possible. And I proceeded
to do it.
The purpose of the trip was to
cover the NCAA lacrosse tournament
in College Park, Md. UNC was in
the Final Four, and as the tourna
ment was close enough for the DTH's
travel budget of $7.98 to cover, I
hopped in my sleek, swift, piece-of-stiff-cardboard
1985 Dodge ("If you
can find a better car, buy it!") Lancer
East Fishkill, N.Y.: If B cam
For the past two summers I worked
at home for the East Fishkill Parks
and Recreation Department in the
thriving metropolis of East Fishkill,
N.Y. I think my official title was
"Maintenance Worker No. 4," but I'm
not sure; I usually just told people I
worked in dirt. Lots of it. Moving it.
Shovelling it. Shaping it. If you're
getting the idea that this was not the
most glamorous job in the world,
you're catching my drift My idea of
manual labor before this experience
was making two double cheeseburg
ers at once; through the E.F. Parks
and Rec, I was introduced to the world
of honest-to-goodness, dirt-under-the-nailsWORK.
The idea of trudging through this
job all summer didn't exactly thrill
me at first, but I realized that it also
had its advantages. First, the mainte
nance staff was a great bunch of guys.
Second, the job paid pretty well, high
above the lofty salary I earned flip
ping burgers. But mostly, I could look
forward to the job because there would
be lots of People around.
tETTERS POtlCY
The Tar Heel welcomes all reader comment. In exchange for access to
the Reader's Forum, we ask that you follow a few simple rules:
All letters and columns must be typed and double-spaced for ease of
editing.
All letters and columns must be signed by the author(s), with a limit of
two signatures per letter or column.
Students should include name, year in school, major, phone number
and home town. Other members of the University community should
include similar information.
The Tar Heel reserves the right to edit for space, clarity and vulgarity.
Letters should be mailed to the editor or placed in the drop box outside
The Tar Heel office.
plan a successful vacation, part one
John Bland
Less Filling
and took off for the great middle At
lantic region.
But first I had to get it jump started.
Then I was off, off like the wind,
fast, my enging purring like a man
with severe emphysema, through
Durham and past the Virginia state
line, where I was met by 14 state
patrolmen who wanted to ask me why
I was driving so fast with my passen
ger door open.
Of course, I had forgotten my
compadres. So I returned to Chapel
Hill and picked them up, and after
they beat the crap out of me, it was
back to Virginia.
Driving 1-85 through Virginia is
kind of like, oh, I don't know, mow
ing a really big field with a weed
eater. Face it, reading Pilgrim's Prog
ress is more exciting than driving
through Virginia, and I should know
because I did them both at the same
time. While steering with my feet.
(Thank God for cruise control).
But pretty soon you run into 1-95,
and then you've got to go back to
Chapel Hill to get a spitload of quar
ters because there are about 4,567
toll booths between Petersburg and
Richmond, which are 15 miles apart.
Eric Chasse
Staff Columnist
I like People. Some of my best
friends are People. I discovered long
ago that no matter what you do in
this world, there are going to be People
around; you might as well learn to
relate with all of them. Working at
the park, or so I thought, would give
me a great opportunity to meet People;
this in itself would be enough incen
tive to get me through the summer.
However much I liked People,
though, the problem was that they
didn't seem to care too much for me.
I would try to start up conversations,
comment about the weather, or just
say "hi" (you don't say "hey" up north
for fear of being either mugged or
institutionalized), but the typical re
action was a condescending smile and
a quick departure. I was even snubbed
by eight-year-old shortstops with
snowcones dripping down their shirts.
By this time my compadres were
feeling a little sleepy, so they stretched
out in the comfortable bucket seats
and the wide back seat and pretty
soon they realized a couple of midg
ets couldn't sleep in this car.
Fall asleep they did, though, and I
put in Guns N' Roses Lies because
there was no way in hell they were
going to sleep on this trip if I couldn't.
We pulled into Washington about
8 p.m. Friday night, a scant 10 hours
and 45 minutes after we pulled out of
Chapel Hill. We made it to College
Park, about 20 miles north, at 1:37
a.m. Saturday morning.
Washington, D.C. is one of those
cities designed by escapees from the
Portland Institute for the Mathemati
cally Deranged. Sure, we stopped and
got directions, which went something
like this:
"Take 95 North until you get to
395 East and follow that until you
get to 295 South but you won't stay
on that long so you pick up Mary
land Route 50, which will take you
back to 395, and you'll pick up 495
North which merges with Virginia
Route 67 and Maryland Route 46 right
there at the state line. Then all you
got to do is watch for the signs."
Yeah, right, thanks buddy. (Cost
me fifty bucks to get those direc
tions.) So of course we wound up in the
Washington ghetto and saw seven
Naturally, this upset me; I almost
crossed People off my Christmas card
list. Then I decided that there must
be something wrong with me, not
them, reasoning that there were a lot
more of them than there are of me,
and five billion People can't all be
wrong.
But when I was at the park and
not working, when I was pitching for
the local team or playing basketball
or whatever, People were as friendly
as they could be. So, I decided, it
must be the clothes that did it: they
like me in a baseball uniform, but
not in my work clothes (old jeans, a
t-shirt, work boots and dirt). That was
reasonable, I concluded, in a quasi-pseudo-Northern
kind of way. I
immediately went to my boss and
asked if we could change our outfits
to something more fashionable; Izods,
khakis and penny loafers would suf
fice. Evidently I had miscalculated
somewhere because he just sent me
to move around some more dirt
At that point, a revelation hit me:
it wasn't the clothes, but the JOB
afar Mnl
people get gunned down in a crack
deal gone bad, but by that time three
or four hookers had surrounded the
car and were systematically remov
ing the hubcaps.
But we eventually made it to Col
lege Park and moved into our spa
cious room at the Motel 5, which is
just like a Motel 6 without some of
the luxuries. Like beds.
Since we still had 53 minutes in
which to drink, we all hopped back
in my car to go back to Georgetown.
(You can see we're not Rhodes
Scholar candidates.)
Arriving in Georgetown, we
slammed about half a gallon of Jim
Beam in about 30 seconds before they
swiped it from us.
We then delegated a designated
driver, something we should've done
before we all got smashed, and shelled
out $373 for a cab ride.
The next day we got up and had to
change rooms because they'd over
booked a convention of the Wayne
Newton fan club, Maryland chapter.
We decided to change hotels instead.
Then we went back to Georgetown
to pick up my car and did a little
shopping on the side, accruing a nice
little $ 1 ,090 debt on my Master Card.
(Girlfriend. 'Nuff said.)
Oh, yeah, we lost the game.
Saturday night we tried to call up
a restaurant but got the area code
wrong and wound up talking to a
make it
itself. I had taken courses in political
theory, so it didn't take me long to
figure out that I was not exactly in a
white collar occupation. Hell, I didn't
even have a collar. It all suddenly
became clear: I was a member of the
proletariat! The culture shock was
incredible. All along I thought I was
middle class. Ha! No wonder no one
would talk to me; any Poli 4 1 student
knows the strength of class cleav
ages in modern societies (like East
Fishkill).
The People were probably afraid
of me, trembling at the power of the
working class movement I personi
fied, quaking at the thought of the
inevitable revolution. I was upset,
granted, but I wasn't ready to over
throw the mayor of East Fishkill yet
the international ramifications
would be incredible.
Eventually, of course, I realized
that the Job wasn't the problem at all
it was the People. If they couldn't
accept me and my job, then it was
their loss. Still, work was never again
Editor Dave Glenn
Assistant Editor Sarah Cagle
Assistant Editor John Bland
Staff Reggie Alston, Randy Basinger, Beth Boorman, Richard
Broadwen, George Brooks, Jennifer Brunnemer, Chris Chalfant,
Eric Chasse, Joanna Davis, Dawn Delvecchio, Stacia Fairchild,
Kelly Ferrell, Jim Greenhill, Jada Harris, Gary Jacobs, Jason
James, Susan Jensen, Sheila Johnston, Jim Justice, Gray Kelly,
Jeff Kiel, Elizabeth Murray, Mike Partridge, Al Ripley, Donna
Sellers, Brian Springer, Barbie Stuckey, John Voncannon.
Yugo dealer in Denver. As in Colo
rado. No lie.
But the weekend was but an em
bryo, and Saturday night we returned
to Georgetown. Georgetown is one
of those parts of Washington where
people of all classes can mingle: drug
dealers, pimps, homosexuals, congres
sional aides, yuppie lawyers and col
lege students from all over the east
em seaboard. It's like your typical
UNC frat party.
We spent oiir last dollars on warm,
overpriced beer at a local watering
hole and returned to Bethesda, until
we realized we were staying in Col
lege Park so, hell, we knew we were
in the same state, and Maryland's
not Texas or Montana, so we figured
we'd drive around some and eventu
ally hit College Park.
Seven hours later we hit the West
Virginia state line, so we turned
aound and shelled out $1,435 for
two plane tickets.
Sunday we got kicked out of our
hotel room because the DTH put out
an APB on us and the Holiday Inn
didn't want to be accessories to credit
card theft.
So we went to Baltimore.
But I'm going to need another
whole column for that.
John Bland is a senior English
major from Charlotte. He is a noto
rious liar.
there
what I hoped it would be. The staff
was still great, and I even got a raise,
but something was missing. The magic
was gone, a victim of latent class
consciousness right here in America,
the land of unlimited social mobility,
freedom of opportunity and Horatio
Alger novels.
I'm not going back to New York
this summer; I'll stay in Chapel Hill
and hopefully get to meet a lot of
new People. Despite what happened
at home, I still like People and have
faith that they didn't really mean to
make me feel like the dirt I worked
in; it's just a sad part of our culture
here in the United States. By the way,
if you happen to be in East Fishkill
this summer and happen to see a guy
moving around a lot of dirt on a ball
field, do me a favor go up to him
and just say hello.
Eric Chasse is a senior Political
ScienceEconomics major from
Hopewell Junction, N.Y., a suburb of
East Fishkill, believe it or not.