Here at the mill I get up every day sometime before 7 a.m., stumble through as many morning rituals as time permits and hop in my car before the clock reaches ten past. Life is all white knuckles from there.
The road I take from work each day weaves like a drunken man down to town. It follows about the same path as a fly in flight. There are so many corners, when you drive it at night your headlights illuminate naught but roadside. While making my way up for the first time, I swore I would never be able drive it at faster than 20 miles per hour.
Yet now, after more than 50 trips either up or down over the past seven weeks, it is nearly a daily flight. I hurtle down the hill and throttle up it. For a long time, I would make nearly the whole down trip in neutral, rolling my way to 35, 40, 45 mph (A regular Rolls Can’adly, anyone?). Then my dad made me realize my freewheeling ways might have some connection to my car’s faint but troubling squealing, so I stopped. The hill is still a raceway, but downshifting is now the order of the day.
In the past few weeks I have become fascinated with every roadside hollow. It could be my slightly slower pace. It could be I have become so accustomed to the commute that I am actually looking around. It could be all the reporting I have done on mining stories. See, I think every hole is an old mine. Some sit in the creases of the valley, shrouded in part by bushes. Some are simply deeper cuts along the rock mine. One is a small pocket in a long dirt wall that I am sure appeared overnight. So today I stopped to investigate.
I found no mines. But, walking along the road, I had virtually my first interaction on Big Hill Road. As I’ve mentioned before, the paved stretch is infamous for dumping, meth-heads and, a commodity forgotten the first time round, redneck residents. As I’ve also mentioned before, I have seen the first, not the second and the third, well, yes. (My landlord, for instance, describes himself as a “liberal redneck.”)
When I tell someone I live on the hill, they usually emit a low “Oh”. They look down and away and push their lips together. I can almost hear thoughts of worry. The courageous mention they hear crime is bad up there.
I had parked my car on the side of the strip and was walking back to one of the hollows when a small pickup in early-decay pulls up. “You OK dude?” asked the 20-something driver as he struggled to roll down his window. “Car break down or run out of gas or something?” he questioned, his voice heavy with concern and the air escaping from his car heavy with the scent of pot. Embarrassed by my mission, I said something about something flying out of my car. “Ok dude.” My friendly smoker drove on.
Such is life on the infamous hill.
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