Air Horns

I pulled up to the intersection in central Virginia, on a road named—simply enough—Route 3. I was hoping to find Route 301 somewhere up ahead, and thus be able to follow the familiar road home. My map was vague about this area, choosing to indicate some roads, and neglecting to identify others. You had to connect the dots, with some of the dots missing. I looked over at an enormous dump truck that was beside me, with a tattooed arm resting on the door and music coming from inside. Coincidentally, it was the same popular music station that my radio was tuned into. I turned down the volume, yelled to the driver, who then turned down the music in his cab to see what I wanted. Not having a top on the car is an unexpected bonus in situations like this, since there is no way I could have attracted his attention in the little fluff of an automobile that I was driving. Enclosed and shut off, I could have croaked out a salutation, and no one would have bothered to even look twice.

“Is 301 up ahead somewhere?” I asked.
He nodded, “Follow this road, cross over the bridge, and bear to the right,” he said, indicating with his right arm which direction to go. “Go about twenty-four miles and you’ll run right into it.”
I thanked him, pulled away from the intersection when the light turned green, and prepared to follow his directions. I crossed the bridge and started to exit where I thought maybe I should, taking the first chance to go right. The name of the town on the sign sounded familiar in any case, being called Port Royal. I heard the sound of his air horn blasting in short bursts a few cars back. He could see my progress from high up in the truck, decided he didn’t like where I was headed. I veered off to the left, suddenly driving erratically, but correcting my course without incident. No one was run off the road, and I got the car going where it was supposed to. In my confusion, I was not able to wave thanks, but the communication was complete: With a wave of his arm and words and blasts from the air horn, we’d managed to get the thing right. The truck he was piloting was an enormous beast, capable of hauling about forty tons of payload, and equipped with three axles under the dump body. The name emblazoned on the hood was Peterbilt, and the engine was most likely made by Caterpillar or Cummins.

I drove on, having spent the night at a friend’s place he and his wife had built by a tremendous lake out in the country. They’d decided to go for broke, building a boathouse and then housing a brand-new pontoon boat with which to cruise the lake and entertain friends. Everything was new and sparkling, and the immense house itself was larger than many homes people claim as their principal residence. We took the boat out on the lake, passing through the rural farmland that had once been without this body of water, which so happens to be Virginia’s largest lake. As a result, we passed through fields that now were sliced by the lapping waves of the man-made lake, saw old barns and stately farmhouses, that—in 1972, would have claimed the area we were cruising as part of their land holdings. The feeling was surreal, knowing that the fields continued under the boat, that the sandy beaches that dotted the shoreline were just thorn bushes and field crops and cow pastures that continued on through the beautiful landscape until the dammed up river rose to obscure great swaths of the countryside. It was a marvel.

Back at the lake house we looked at a small lawnmower that was having problems. It wouldn’t stay running, and my friend had told me beforehand that he would like me to take a look at it. Before leaving my house I’d thrown a few tools together and glanced around for anything else that might be helpful. There on my workbench were some parts from a lawnmower—namely, the fuel tank and carburetor combination. I threw these into the car with the other things. It was something of a shot in the dark, since I didn’t know what kind of lawnmower was waiting at the end of my trip, nor exactly could I be sure of the problem it was experiencing. However, when I looked at the machine, I immediately saw that it had the same components as the ones I’d brought along. I swapped the parts, put gas in the replacement fuel tank, and got the mower fired up and running. The new carburetor worked like a dream, and I was happy to be rid of the unwanted parts—which were just taking up space back home. My friend took the newly-repaired mower down to the lakeside and cut some of the long tufts of grass that were growing at the water’s edge. While he was thus engaged, I waded through the tall grasses to a neighboring property that featured an abandoned house. I followed the shoreline for about a hundred feet, then headed to the two-story frame house that looked not in the least bit welcoming. The owner maybe came by from time to time, poked around a bit, perhaps threw a few logs into the large wood-burning stove I could see in the main room, and pondered his dilapidated surroundings. Old furniture, of the kind you’d expect to see left behind in such a place, was strewn about. A mattress was propped against a sofa that I could just make out in the dimly-lit interior. Pieces of cloth hung from the windows, making the place dark on this bright afternoon. The front door was padlocked, and the house was closed off, but someone had smashed the front window, maybe to gain entrance—maybe just to break the window. In any case, you could gain entry into the house that way if you were so inclined. I felt it best to leave the thing alone, give it back to the weeds and weather that were more rapidly claiming the creaky old house with each passing year. This house was not so very different from a place that would be common in the nineteen-twenties; it had probably been built in that era, and had little in the way of improvements over the years. Two doors down was the newly-erected lake house, with twin climate-control systems, immense areas for recreation and relaxing, an open kitchen with a breakfast bar, five or more bedrooms with fantastic views of the water, and decks, patios, and a boathouse with another screened-in eating area for large gatherings. I took one backwards look at the place as I left the abandoned property, saw a poor little barbecue grill someone had anchored into the ground at an angle, and two warped and weathered picnic tables set randomly in the tall grass. This was my kind of vacation house.

Later, as I took my friend’s young son for a ride to the end of the long driveway in the open car, the little boy remarked in wonder: “That is a TINY car!” It so happens that he loves convertibles and was overjoyed to have a ride in one at last. I was on my way home, would be asking the man at the wheel of the heavy truck how to make better progress in about a half-hour. I let the little boy out at the end of the driveway, where he rejoined his dad on the riding mower he’d driven up there to see me off.