Wednesday, September 07, 2005

Darling, I Love You, But Give Me Park Avenue

As a longtime city dweller, I found something really endearing about this New York Times story about a group of hurricane-surviving urbanites who were relocated to the Baptist Vista Encampment, a summer retreat in the Ozark Mountains in northwestern Arkansas. Used to the city life in New Orleans, these evacuees were just not prepared for the great outdoors.

"All these trees," Betty Taylor sobbed, as her husband, Ray, and her two sisters reached out to comfort her. "It seems like hell."
Betty's arbor day of reckoning took me back to the summer I went to Ireland with my friend Ken. The first few days we stayed in Dublin and I was in heaven. Then we ventured out to the more rural County Galway and slowly found our way to the middle of nowhere where our bed & breakfast was located. As we pulled up near the place — which was actually some old lady's house — I began to have a horrifying anxiety attack surrounded by all of these trees and fresh air. I told Ken we had to turn around and go back to the nearest city immediately. Ken clearly saw the look of pure terror in my eyes and began to make a U-turn in the driveway as the old lady smiled and waved to greet us — and then looked on in horror as he floored it the hell out of McDodge!

We eventually found a place in downtown Galway and immediately headed to the nearest gay bar, where a rousing crowd of 12 guys warmly welcomed us to the hopping Galway City scene.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love this post for so many reasons (and you can certainly figure out what they are)! It's about time you started up a blog, Puddin'!

Anonymous said...

I can just picture the scene in my mind. I just hope you didn't send any loose chippings flying at the old lady's head as you tore outta there.