Tuesday, October 09, 2001 5:19:42 PM
Backyard - Picnic Table - Squirrels- Trees- Wine. You know the drill, except I have on several layers of clothing. Across the valley the local football team is making sounds like boots in basic training. WhoHa!

COPS!
No, this isn't going to be a tirade. Never once will I use the word PIG except ........ I know a cop's job is hard and thankless. Hell, I couldn't stand it when I was a patrol boy in the sixth grade and a cute little first grade girl cried because I looked so threatening goose-stepping up and down the aisles of the bus. I think the principal chose me for duty because of the imposing flab of my body in the first place. After countless afternoons of her tears, I got a kind of Frankenstein complex. I examined my head each night for bolts. Nothing was ever there, just a fat neck, a shiny badge and a white belt. Yet the little girl still cowered in her seat when all I did was, well, patrol.
Don't think I don't have empathy for people who wear shiny badges and can give you tickets because you break some irrelevant law that some governmental father figure thought would both protect us and keep us from having any fun. I don't hate 'em, honest! I understand 'em. What I don't get is; why don't they train them.
On the north side of the Allegheny River was started this summer in merry may a project that completely dismantled the roadway. I mean, only the concrete pillars were left standing. The entire bloody overpass came down and since we are not up yet to Jetson flying technology, the rotten sniveling bastards from across the river came in hordes over to my side and totally screwed up traffic. I did and do consider it a personal affront. "Damn Tourists!" I hiss every morning as they pour off the Highland Park Bridge on to my personal roadway. It just ain't fair. But I learned to live with it and it is October and the other side of the river now sports happy new steel beams sitting proudly on concrete pillars, but not yet any roadway.
This morning traffic was abhorrent. As I approached the Fleming Bridge from the south I noticed that cars were backed up all the way across the bridge and out on to the Butler Street. My mind goes numb in situations like this. If I lived in England where the people queue up if someone stands still for an instant, I would long ago have been taken away, my arms secure against my side, billowing a spray of spittle and howling like a wild hyena. If a fast food restaurant has a line of, say, more than two people I walk out in disgust. I am irrational about this. I know it. But it doesn't stop the knot in my stomach which reaches to a kink in my brain.
There was nothing for it this morning. I sat on the bridge while I conjured up images of cars falling into the river and the means that I would use to get off the bridge when it happened. There must be an accident. I thought. Dead people and crushed cars. Surely the ambulances were blocking traffic. I ticked off all the possibilities. I was in a Twilight Zone episode where time stopped. I was in Hell where you wait in line for everything and never reach the front. Then it came to me and I knew what was going on.
There was a cop directing traffic! And sure enough when I got close to the end of the bridge. A traffic officer!
I don't know if the guy never had any logic in school, or if he was hopelessly flummoxed by a Rubik Cube, or if Big Blue beat him badly in a game of chess, or if was the only job that they could find for him. I sat and watched the sad spectacle. Until that is there were no cars at any of the other sections of the intersection except for mine. We sat. No one moved. The cop was looking every direction but mine. I pounded the dash board of my car. I honked and then I beeped the horn. To no avail. There was some reasoning far greater than I could figure running this guy. Traffic was probably backed up passed Allegheny River Boulevard to Toronto, Canada. Eventually, a car that must have started several hours earlier in downtown Pittsburgh came slowly down the very empty ramp from Route 28 North made a right turn and moved in the opposite direction up and off the bridge. And, Ay God, there was a still a hesitation from the fine officer. He must have then figured that we had served enough of a jail term, so he smiled and waved us on. I swear, right hand up to God, one more block and a second cop stopped us for another line that coming from the East must have been backed up with cars longer than a freight train.
Did you ever see the cop on Candid Camera? Vic Cianca. He was downtown at various intersections. He could move traffic. Isn't there film of his hand signals, his body moves even the expressions on his face somewhere for study? Can't the Police Academy structure a course; Move the Traffic Along 101, based on his moves. Vic are you up there shaking your head?
I hope they're pouring concrete tonight. I can't take a whole lot more. For now, I'm pouring some wine!