Take Care When You Drive The Hillmombahn

Mrs. Hillbilly Mom is puzzled this evening, my friends. Puzzled. Not like a 10,000 piece seascape jigsaw, brought home borrowed for fun by her grandma from State Hospital Number 4 (as a worker, my friends, not a patient) to put together on the dining room table. No. Puzzled. As in confused.

The main road to town is two-lane blacktop. A lettered county highway, twisty and turny. Mrs. HM is only on it for a couple of miles. On the good end, that's mostly straight, and passes in front of the prison. People (not Mrs. HM, of course) drive recklessly on that road. My best old ex-teaching buddy, Mabel, would attest to that, I'm sure. Heh, heh. Get it? An ex-teacher will atTEST! I crack myself up sometimes.

My own dear mother used to worry me when she drove that road, because her top speed was 45 mph. Not fast enough! Not for the folks who scream down that lettered highway. The actual speed limit is 55, which is quite reasonable.

Yesterday, on her way home, Mrs. HM was going 65 64 mph. There's a difference, you know, bigger than 1 mph. As one of the members of the Newmentia Lunch Time Think Tank used to advise the robot team (including the #1 son) on their way to competitions in her van, "The police saying is: 'Nine is fine, ten you're mine!' Don't go 10 miles over the speed limit, boys, or you'll get a ticket." Uh huh. To teach is to touch a life forever.

Anyhoo, there I was, going 65 64 mph after rounding the sharp curve just past the prison, where people run off and have hacked hunks out of a tree trunk by a little pond. The road straightens out there, and it's just a short jaunt down the hill, then up over the high bridge to where I make my left turn onto the county road. I have driven that road for 28 years now, and have exemplary control of T-Hoe on that stretch.

So...I'm tooling along, not a care in the world, a fresh 44 oz Diet Coke at my side, when WHOOSH! A sedan blew past me going at least 90 mph! He came out of nowhere! I swear there was nothing behind me when I started past the rich houses.

Here's what puzzles me. Why does anybody need to go faster than 65 64 mph on a road like that? We have speed limits for a reason, you know. This is not the autobahn! It's not like he was heading to the hospital with some crybaby who cut her thumb while slicing an onion. The hospital is in the other direction! It's not like he had escaped from the prison in a car that a visitor left the keys in. The highway is in the other direction!

I can only assume it was somebody who really, really couldn't wait to get home with his 44 oz Diet Coke.