My own attempted provincialism


It was a sunny, lazy Bolinas day, with only a couple of cars parked on Wharf Road. The scratching activities of a couple of dogs provided the bulk of the action.

Next to the bar there was a sidewalk leading up the hill alongside the building, back toward the long buildings which constituted the Bolinas Hotel, on the wooded hillside behind Smiley's. The gravel parking area for the bar and hotel was adjacent to this walkway, with the bar situated to the east of the lot, and the hotel to the north. Separating the parking lot from Wharf Road was a concrete retaining wall, just the right height for sitting on, shaded by a scraggly cedar tree.

Much of the important social spin of the town happened under this tree. Here was the site of many breakups, and reconciliations; the site where surfers recounted the day's tales of glory, weary locals unwound after a day's work, the latest jokes were told, and locals played the dozens - all of which happened to the ever-present accompaniment of canned Budweiser. This place was simply called, 'The Wall'.

Here, I was planted this day, whiling away the long hours with my illicit can of Coors (iconoclast that I was) in hand. On such absolutely dead quiet days as this, the boredom could be both exquisite and excruciating. Any event, no matter how mundane attracted interest.

On such days any car not recognized as indigenous attracted negative attention. Local kids would spit out the worst of all possible slurs at any hapless outsider who chanced into town; "TOURIST!!!"

Regardless of it's actual velocity, any such car was always judged to be traveling at an inappropriate rate of speed. If slow, then the car's occupants were judged to be gawkers, intruding on the inalienable Bolinian rights to peace and privacy. Faster drivers were reckless speeders whose vehicular assault upon sleeping dogs and playing children (not to mention hapless drunks) was met with the battle cry: "SLOW DOWN, TOURIST!" by incensed citizens.

As I took refuge from the baking California sun, sitting on The Wall, I heard the approach of a vehicle. The distinctive 'vrooom!' of it's engine and the weighty crunch of it's tires forecast that it was a truck, even before it rolled into view. Shortly, sure enough, a 60's vintage large red pickup came blasting down Wharf Road, at a shockingly high rate of speed.

By now I considered myself to be a local, having been around long enough to have acquired a nickname and a job (Scowley's resident slave). Thus it was with this sense of civic pride that I blurted out the obligatory, "SLOW DOWN, YA FUCKIN' TOURIST!" as the truck careened around the bend in the road just a few yards beyond Smiley's.

Smug in the sense that I was among the elite who could lay just claim to the righteous judgment of the wretched tourist intruder - a keeper of the flame of Bolinian autonomy, I settled back against the trunk of the cedar tree and took a long, slow, self satisfied swig of my well deserved brew.

...Life is sweet when you have a home - a place of belonging, where values are uncluttered - where right is right, and principals worth standing up for... These people who think they can just move in on anybody else's homes and behave anyway they want have to know that there are people who will stand up for what's right and fair! This is Bolinas, by gawd, not the back streets of some urban slum where pea-brained jerks with a stick shift and too much horsepower can burn rubber anytime they feel like....

My thoughts were shattered by the rude sound of tires sliding on loose gravel.

The big, red truck loomed before me now, having apparently turned around at the end of Wharf Road and headed back the other direction, stopping abruptly in front of Smiley's. The door opened with an angry creak, and then thudded closed with strong punctuation. Moving with swift authority , a rather large, fifty-ish man in a military looking hat and with blood in his eyes strode from around the truck. Approaching to a point so close that I could have counted the gray hairs in his short, pencil thin mustache, he pointed a stubby index finger directly into my startled face.

"Listen you little piss-ant" he began in a tone faintly reminiscent of an earlier conversation with a person wearing a similar hat, "whoever the hell you think you are to tell ME to slow down, you oughta' be awful gawddamned sure of just who your'e talkin' to ya little jerk! I been Fire Chief in this town longer then you've been outa diapers, an' if I want to drive a hunnerd n' ten gawddamned miles an hour, I'll gawddamned well do it , ya little JERK!" he wheeled and returned to his driver's seat so rapidly that I could have sworn I felt a back-wind, and with another emphatic spin of his tires, his truck sped off.

I decided that maybe in this instance, I should resist the impulse to yell after him.......

.................................."SLOW DOOOWN!!"

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