1998 Vacation Part V: The Homey Convergence
9/21/1
written by Postwood, Monday, September 14, 1998
Aisai and I had seen from a postcard what the profile of the seawall was like. But we hadn't been across the street to actually look at the Gulf close up and see the seawall ourselves. So we decided to go on a walk over there.
It was nice, and gave me a good reference to compare the size of the waves later on. At that time, I believe that the waves were five to seven feet tall. This was considered high, but Aisai and I had nothing to compare it to.
After that we took a swim in the pool and then we made our first significant mistake.
We had seen a sign on the side of a pier shop that said T-shirts were three for $10. We got in the Saturn and set off down the Seawall. Unfortunately, it was time for the Homey Convergence.
Now, you may think that I am being mean or whatever calling it a Homey Convergence. But I'm not. And if you think that I choose that because of the race of the folks involved, that isn't it either, since all the races were represented, to each ones shame.
Aisai and I were in the "slow" lane at first. In fact, both lanes were very slow. But we were in the right lane. In front of us were two girls of questionable virtues that were hanging out the back windows of the car while their "fat fat friend"� drove. The term "fat fat friend"� does not necessarily mean that she was fat, but she had taken the role of the gal who doesn't flirt. But it doesn't mean she was thin either.
(Man, Aisai is going to strike all of this out.)
There were also groups on the side of the road, drinking beer, shaking their stuff, and occasionally the dorky guy of the group would moon us. It was like you would expect if you knew what I was talking about. Like Club MTV meets reality in the low rent district. The largest roadside collection of youths was in front of the groovily designed condos that I originally picked for us to go to. The REI guy on the phone had told Aisai that we didn't want to stay there, and that the Inverness by the Sea, which we did stay at, was much nicer. Shoot, I'm glad he helped us like that. I didn't want to be in singles party city.
The scariest part of it all was the dudes in the Lincoln Towncar. Here was a 2-year-old Towncar that they had lowered and put fat tires on. They were driving forward in surges toward the bronco type car in front of them and wiggling the wheel back and forth as they braked. They would also open the doors and hang out. They weren't trying to hassle the guys in the truck in front of them, or at least that was not their prime motivation. They wanted to get at the girlies in front of us.
This didn't last too long, maybe five minutes. And then I was able to get in behind the Towncar homeys. I took the next left I could, which was fairly difficult. Then we went to the Strand again, which actually shuts down at around 6 p.m.
We went home, but not via the Seawall. Aisai called her mom and got Carol and Brad's address so we could send them a card, and we also got the zip code for my parent�s house.
We ate in that night with the grub we had scored from Wal-Mart. Chicken and rice is pretty darn good when you get sick of eating out all the time.
We didn't go out after dark on any night that we were there, except maybe to swim in the pool. That night I watched the news and a man and his son were missing in the Gulf. The undertow had gotten them. Also, in the news was a lady and her daughter were taken to hospital after the large waves had dashed them against the rocks and they were unable to get away.
I don't remember if the boy eventually washed up. I think he did. But it may have been a dream. I had many and odd dreams the whole time that we were there. In fact, I'm still having too many dreams. The ones I have had lately are due to the stuff I read about the president in what is being called the Starr Report.
If this is the Starr Report, then what was the name of the one that Starr did when he investigated Packwood?