reflections on cars and death
Nov. 12th, 2011 04:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
frotzOne of the things that always feels a bit weird about visiting the southwest is the car culture. It's not as if my end of the country is free of it, but in southern California in particular most people drive a whole lot, and most of them seem to really bond with their cars and consider them an important part of their selves. Many of the retail services available are all about cars, the advertising is all cars cars cars, and the whole vehicular way of life seeps into one. (Or at least me.)
So, having just been there for a while, it was extra-weird to come home and then spend a whole bunch of today in a junkyard. Even here, sliding into the driver's seat of many of these cars is to put one's self into someone else's life in a small way. The dashboard toys, the pictures of loved ones, the stickers, even just the worn-shiny bits that tell you exactly where and how the previous owner sat and held the wheel, not to mention the side and shape of their backside. Sometimes they come with books, papers, employment badges, and the like, and the only assumption I can make is that the previous owner was in no condition to collect them before the insurance company declared it totaled and dragged it off into oblivion. (Or at least to the seedy backside of suburban industrial areas to be stacked two- or three-high and picked clean by the flightless vultures.)
While they still kind of annoy me, I have also come to more appreciate those roadside crosses that people put up as a memorial of loved ones. I've had the poor luck to have seen a couple of horrific crashes lately, and it's a kind of marvel how the cops and ambuances and tow trucks show up to pick up the pieces. When I pass the other way an hour later it's all swept up and gone, with nothing but perhaps a quickly-fading skid mark and a bump in the guardrail to note the spot. A week or two later the wreckage filters through the insurance yard and ends up in the mud, and there I sit next to the blood stains unscrewing some plastic interior widgets so my sun visor can be less floppy.
I didn't really have a point when I started writing this, but while in many ways I still like cars, and I think they're quite useful for utility and recreation, the degree to which modern American life is designed around them bugs the crap out of me.
So, having just been there for a while, it was extra-weird to come home and then spend a whole bunch of today in a junkyard. Even here, sliding into the driver's seat of many of these cars is to put one's self into someone else's life in a small way. The dashboard toys, the pictures of loved ones, the stickers, even just the worn-shiny bits that tell you exactly where and how the previous owner sat and held the wheel, not to mention the side and shape of their backside. Sometimes they come with books, papers, employment badges, and the like, and the only assumption I can make is that the previous owner was in no condition to collect them before the insurance company declared it totaled and dragged it off into oblivion. (Or at least to the seedy backside of suburban industrial areas to be stacked two- or three-high and picked clean by the flightless vultures.)
While they still kind of annoy me, I have also come to more appreciate those roadside crosses that people put up as a memorial of loved ones. I've had the poor luck to have seen a couple of horrific crashes lately, and it's a kind of marvel how the cops and ambuances and tow trucks show up to pick up the pieces. When I pass the other way an hour later it's all swept up and gone, with nothing but perhaps a quickly-fading skid mark and a bump in the guardrail to note the spot. A week or two later the wreckage filters through the insurance yard and ends up in the mud, and there I sit next to the blood stains unscrewing some plastic interior widgets so my sun visor can be less floppy.
I didn't really have a point when I started writing this, but while in many ways I still like cars, and I think they're quite useful for utility and recreation, the degree to which modern American life is designed around them bugs the crap out of me.