Roads, Mills, Laps

I was in the dollar store yesterday a long time ago.

I bought a lock for my bike and a book light (LED). The latter pops open when you push a plastic button–pretty nifty.

I checked out the book section. You can get the former Attorney General’s book Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice.

$1; it’s all yours.
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This past weekend, I was in Jim Thorpe, PA for a bachelor party (not mine). It was all about whitewater rafting, drinking, and other simian behavior exhibited by a flange of males away from feminine influence. I stayed at a place called Jim Thorpe Camping Resort. A resort camp: that place was hardly either. No, it was pretty much a giant mess. We were there during the Pocono 500, so you can imagine what the hell awaited us when we turned left off the divided highway.

We had lots of sleeveless tee-shirted men with their flabby arm fat and their American eagle tattoos; we had their dirty, mumbling offspring, out wandering around at all hours of the day and night, wielding whittled sticks and spitting green lugies that hung from the branches of innocent birch trees. We had rowdy campfires; we heard tall tales about fast cars–babes n’ big boobs; American beer and meat. Bin Laden was hung in effigy. After a suckling a five cases of piss beer, the barbarians channeled the spirit of Dale Earnhardt; he appeared above their fires–walking hand-in-hand with Jesus who happened to be wearing red and white striped pants and an Uncle Sam top hat. That’s right: Jesus is an American, damnit.

Toby Keith serenaded us from the stereos of big trucks. He crooned about our great land of plenty–reminding us that we must never forget; telling us about the American soldiers over there; telling us what it means to sacrifice things in the name of freedom; making us dream about large supermarket aisles, green grass, and sit down mowers.

The two shitters were overflowing: there was enough excreted Walmart in those paint-peeled cubicles of death to trowel every brick in the Great Wall of China.

The showers were nothing but repositories for pubic hair and hastily blown, meteor-sized clumps of nasal material. The water was cold on Saturday and lukewarm on Sunday. Shower shoes were a must. The physical act of showering meant closing one’s eyes and plugging one’s nose–keeping hands off the walls. Nothing was to touch anything without protective covering (which I’ve since burned upon my return to Bohemia).

Burgers and venison sizzled; smoke billowed over the campground; big laughs bellowed, echoing across the campsite until the chipmunks rose from their nests at dawn and began their Jim Thorpe morning ritual of scavenging the littered forest for half-digested, Planters-brand wasabi peanuts.

Beer bottles (Coors, Bud, Miller) were scattered everywhere. Little yellow bees flew into tipped over 40-ouncers and got drunk on the proud men’s backwash; sinister crows descended from tall pine trees and gorged on their vomit.

There were some video games in the camp HQ. You could shoot baskets for 30 seconds or drive a pixelated race car through a virtual Las Vegas. After that, you could pick up an advertisement for a Bible show in Strasburg (a double feature: Noah’s Ark and the Creation story!) or take part in a paintball war at Skirmish, USA. Chips and jerky were for sale in the general store–so too were American flag bandannas, NASCAR flasks, and 10-packs of tightie whities.

The cabins turned out to be hastily-erected shed kits–the kind you see for sale on the sides of the road throughout central PA. One window looked through a few unfortunate trees into the unzipped opening of a domed tent chock full of hairy asscrack. (Can you imagine being a tree and having the misfortune of being planted in THAT place–one sad mile away from tens of thousands of acres of pristine national forest?)

But the town of Jim Thorpe is another thing: a refreshing sight.

I ran through it on Sunday morning: about 10-11 miles. Let me clarify something though: You don’t run through Jim Thorpe; you either run up it or down it. The entire town sits on a steep slant. It’s a neat town; it’s an old town that’s been left alone, pretty much. Its inhabitants spend their life smoking while seated on plastic lawn chairs that stand on 3′ x 3′ faded Astroturf porches; they sit there and watch the tourists from Philadelphia or New Jersey walk by and spend their disposable income on old porcelain dolls and musty barn relics.

I turned left and ran along the Lehigh River for a bit and then turned around, because the dew point was approaching Mombasian levels. It was a pleasant and peaceful run; good for the soul–reminding me that all isn’t Jesus billboards* and burgers. The amount of trash on the sides of the the road in Jim Thorpe–the old Bob Seger cds; the discarded wrappers; the pillow cushions–wasn’t much to catalog here. No one honked at me from behind (to watch me jump); no one thumped their manhood from their car like a Congolese silverback; no one called me a ‘faggot’.

No.

The road was pretty much made up of leathery bikers, GenXYZ ecotourists, and old people hunched over the steering wheels of their Bismarck-sized RVs. The rednecks left me alone out there, so I left them alone when I got back to the Jim Thorpe Camping Resort. I packed up my stuff and got out of there as soon as I could.

I don’t think I’m ever going camping there again.

But I might go back to Jim Thorpe; it’s a cool town.
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*Well I did see one: Exposed stigmatized hands were visible; “Have you nailed down your date yet?” it read.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 9th, 2008 at 6:24 pm and is filed under Running, Expression. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.