Tag Archives: Los Angeles

By-pass

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By-pass (n) a road passing around a town

I’ve driven through Los Angeles about a half a dozen times.

Every town has unique traffic hazards.

For instance, Chicago has so many lanes and so much foul weather that you feel you’re in a congested arena of bumper cars.

San Francisco doesn’t have enough land for the number of cars that want to make their way up the coast.

Atlanta is filled with people who like to stop and gaze at traffic accidents, therefore creating jams which don’t seem to have a point of origin, but are endless anyway.

But Los Angeles is unique. They seem to always be working on parts of the freeway, or there are guest dignitaries who are blocking off segments of the road–so there is always a detour or a by-pass.

One day I was driving on the 405 when all the cars suddenly began to exit to honor a detour. We ended up going through the residential district of one of the poorer areas of town. For a while, there were signs encouraging me to pursue. But then, all at once, I realized there were no signs and no more freeway traffic to follow–just me, driving around haplessly, staring at unfamiliar surroundings.

I realized I was lost. I pulled over and asked a gentleman where the by-pass was to take me back to my destination. He laughed and said, “That’s about seven miles back, on this street.”

I frowned. “Well, I didn’t see any signs taking me there.”

He then roared with laughter. “Signs? Well, the kids in the neighborhood love to steal those signs. They put ’em in their rooms to decorate their homes. You can’t follow the signs. You need to follow the guy in front of you, who looks like he lives here and knows where to turn.”

I had not done that.

I was looking for a by-pass with signage.

What I ended up with was a by-pass which required you to be led of the Spirit.

 

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Abilene

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Abilene: 1 a city in east central Kansas; pop. 6,242. It was the first terminus of the Chisholm Trail.  2. a city in north central Texas, an agricultural and oil industry center; pop. 106,654

Darned tootin’ if Abilene doesn’t need a song.

Phoenix has one–Seattle, too. Los Angeles has several. New York, Nashville, Memphis, New Orleans…all of them have got tuneful tributes.

It seems to be my duty to write Abilene a song. I guess I will start with the A, B, C formula. In other words, go through the alphabet and find words that rhyme wiht Abilene so as to find possibilities as to where this composition might go.

Let me see now… A, B, C.  Nothing there. D gives us Dean. I don’t know what we’ll do with that. E, F… then there’s G.  You get green and glean. Possible.

H, I, J, K… they’re all a wash. L. Lean. Of course, you’ve already got that in the name of the town–Abilene.

M. Mean. Not much use. N, O. Well, I guess n-o. No.

P for preen. How would you work that in?

Here’s one! Queen! Of course, I don’t know if they allow queens in Abilene.

R has nothing. S–Seen. Either the s-e-e-n or the s-c-e-n-e. So maybe I could make the scene in Abilene with my Queen named Jean. Hey, I forgot the J, for Jean. You see how it’s building??

Teen. That’s dangerous. Because my Queen, Jean, should not be a teen, or you’re in danger of statuatory rape.

U, V. Nothing there. Again.

W has ween. That’s frightening. Of course, X, Y and Z is just like the tail that never shakes off anything of value.

So what did we end up with?

Queen Jean who’s a teen from Abilene, who makes the scene and isn’t really mean, although she spends too much time in an attempt to preen. But her looks are never obscene.

Oh, there’s an O.

You see how it works? Genius HAS form and reason to it.

But even as I look at the results, I have to admit that the Abilene song may have just about as much promise as the city itself.

It’s not my fault. I tried.