Weekend Update

we had big plans to go to jim thorpe, pa this weekend but in the end we did what we always do: sleep too late to do anything we had planned. friday night we saw robin williams in "one hour photo" at the ritz 5 in philadelphia and had a steak at geno's so by the time we got home the idea we had to get up at 7am and leave was scratched. no worries, we thought we'd hang out saturday and do the jim thorpe thing on sunday. saturday was supersunny so we got some beers and laid out on the deck all morning then watched football for the rest of the afternoon. pretty much the perfect day. we did manage to get up relatively early this morning, but didn't feel like driving too far, or so we thought. instead, we headed up to reading for some outlet shopping and then over to allentown for some rollercoasters.

we had a good time but it was a little creepy. everyone we saw in both places looked like a character from a stephen king movie. teeth were coming out the sides of their gums and not a single person had two eyes looking in the same direction. the air reeked of body odor and cigarette smoke, which is pretty amazing considering that we were outdoors. this state gets a bit frightening when you leave philadelphia.

Sunday 08-Sep-02

Scary. I think the term you are looking for is reflective. It would seem you were back at home in Oklahoma again. Stinky shoppers, bad hygiene, all the comforts of home. I had a guy in my office on Friday that I walked outside in the hot sun to talk to him because I was afraid I couldn't get the smell out of my office.

posted by: jon on Monday 09-Sep-02

yes, it was just like home. it's weird, people try and associate all the redneck/NASCAR/mullet/ignorant stuff with the south, but with all the moving around and traveling around i have done i have pretty much found that those stereotypes are generally true everywhere once you get a few miles out of the larger cities.

posted by: ash on Monday 09-Sep-02

every member of the shallow gene pool family were there. It was chilling. I'd venture to say that that lot at Dorney Park were worse than the Oklahoma rednecks. They're in such close proximity to the megalopolis that it's as though they're trying to be badly dressed, stupid, and dull inspite of the civilising atmosphere of those big cities. Sort of "I'm fuckin stoopid and that's the way I wanna be. You damn townies don't know nothin." And that's more vile than the Okies who are in the middle of nowhere.

posted by: Fraser on Monday 09-Sep-02

That's scary because it's true. There was an imaginary line between the Triangle area of North Carolina and NASCAR country. And if there was a line between the Bush family's Kennebunkport and Ricky Craven's Maine, it was awful blurry. No wonder there's such a continued migration toward the cities. I'm not blaming NASCAR (or Wal-Mart Supercenters), but I think it's a symptom of something I don't want to come into contact with any more than necessary.

posted by: Mike on Monday 09-Sep-02

right. they are everywhere - in the biggest of places. people think "new york" and they think NYC, but it's a big state. and most of it is definitely *not* manhattan. drive about 30 miles northwest and you might as well be in appalachia. and i know quite a few people on long island who are a lot better suited for life in arkansas.

posted by: ash on Monday 09-Sep-02

posted by: texas hold em on Tuesday 21-Sep-04