Kennedy’s Brain
10 miles last night. Out and back in Orlando–same as this post.
The only funny thing is that since I’ve been gone, “they” discovered unexploded ordinance from World War 2 out by the middle school’s track (and you thought banging out 8 forgotten laps as a zit-faced teenager was a bombshell; ha!) Turns out, in the rush to plow over the fields and form flat, dry land–to build righteous gated communities with 4000-square feet McMansions with plastic baby Jesus’ perfectly centered in the fake Chemlawns–”they” missed the fact that P-38s and B-24s used to drop massive amounts of ordinance on this sacred land–big bombs, bombs that blew up Nazi railways; bombs that knocked over Rommel’s staff car; bombs that stemmed the Japanese tide, the banzai charge, at Okinawa. This was the place were these things were tested–lots of tests; lots of bombs; lots of calculations made by patriotic men with slide rules and crisp, khaki pants.
Many of them didn’t explode. “They” needed to tweak something, obviously.
Then the big bomb (tested 3000 miles west of here) blew up 200,000 people in a day and so no more tests happened on the ground.
Then the 50s came and farmers grew something.
The 60s: same thing.
Then the 70s: Carter’s malaise–cows probably shitting on 454 kg bombs; probably cows laying on 559mm Mk 13-2 torpedoes. One or two may have gone off in the middle of the night, but nobody really cares about the lives of cows.
Ach! The 80s: Miami Vice happened south of here. People make coke money; lots of coke is snorted. Coke mixed with nasal drip flows out of a lot of noses; boobies make lots of appearances; ladies dance wildly; big boats ply Miami’s waters. Land starts to get expensive, I guess. Cows are herded and shipped off somewhere west–like Eastern Colorado, perhaps?
And the 90s: land sells. Development companies start forming by Florida State and Clemson grads, men who like to watch football and talk REALLY LOUD, REALLY CONFIDENT; men who drink and shake hands and sign papers; men who plan to buy low and sell high. Grass grows tall on the bomb-strewn land, but no fear: Things are on the move.
2001: Muslim extremists fly planes into two American buildings in Manhattan and into the epicenter of American military planning. People get scared–really scared. Land sells. Blueprints are printed. Gates are ordered; gate makers shake hands with land developers. The bogeyman is summoned. Nobody is to be trusted. Hoarding happens; big box stores thrive and stay open past midnight. Happiness equals working in a cubicle all day and shopping at night for lots o’ things to justify the toil, the folly of profligacy (The president tells people that shopping plays a vital role in the war against the terrorists.)
2002-30 minutes until now: McMansions are built. Wagons are circled; Tikoloshe is warded off; savages are kept out. And then these old WW2 bombs are discovered one day by a shot putter who throws his shot too far at the middle school. Land suddenly drops in value; houses are put on the market; foreclosures spout like mold on a rotting pumpkin in the woods.
Tonight: Runners–me–pass by and write about it all.
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Postscript: after running 10 miles again tnite, I realized that the green grass around here doesn’t come from Chemlawns. Rather, it comes from running sprinklers 24/7. I passed through sprinklers the whole time. There’s lots of water around these parts and so the water has to be run through PVC pipes that feeds the grass that looks good to the people zooming by at 60 mph.