Livin on the road my friend, is gonna keep you free and clean
Now you wear your skin like iron
Your breath as hard as kerosene
– from “Pancho & Lefty” by Townes Van Zandt. Sung by Willie Nelson
Being a self-imposed vagabond, or “Rubber Tramp” as some call us, so to differentiate us from “Leather Tramps” – rubber tramps have wheels, leather tramps just shoes as a way of conveyance – means not knowing what kind of neighborhood I am in when I park for the night.
I sleep mostly in Wal-Mart parking lots since many of them still have overnight parking policies. But, the problem I face is, one can find a Wal-Mart in just about any type of neighborhood. So, it tells me nothing really.
I mean, one of my tertiary goals on this adventure is to not be awoken by someone breaking into the EM-50 Phantom Rambler. So, I have learned to look for clues that would indicate whether I am in a high-crime area or not.
I don’t always know why certain signs are regarded as clues, but I trust my gut. If something doesn’t seem right, I move on to the next Wal-Mart.
Often, I look no further than my gymnasium, PF (Planet Fitness). An area with a Planet Fitness tends to be in a reasonably safe neighborhood.
Of course, the argument could be made that some dude with out-of-state tags, sleeping in his car, automatically knocks the neighborhood down a notch. Point.
The PF litmus test isn’t foolproof, though. Take Jackson, TN for instance. The colors of the PF sign looked a bit washed and faded. Hmm. Not good. Directly across the street is a coin laundromat, while necessary to my travels, it is definitely a red flag.
I began to move on when I spotted a Chic-Fil-A.
“Well, this changes everything.” I thought and put the Rambler back into park. That’s when I noticed the Goodwill Store. Uh-oh. But, wait! They have a drive-thru drop off lane!
I needed more data. I scanned my surroundings. A store called, “Dirt Cheap”. I didn’t like the sound of that. But also a Smoothie King. I was so confused.
As I sat there gathering info, some clown came to a complete stop before inching his way over a speed bump in the parking lot – never a good thing to see, for some reason.
The next lot over had a vacant space at what should have been an anchor store. No good. But, then I saw a landscape crew cutting the grass on that little island between lanes of traffic.
As a side note, I drove over to said strip of land . (pic related)
How I got there… is The EM-50 Phantom Rambler (pic related)
And that, my friends, is the difference between a Median and a Mode.
Back to the story…
I wasn’t sure what to do, and then it hit me! I Googled “tattoo parlors near me”.
The result was a half a dozen shops with names that indicated violent episodes of mental disorder and anti-social behavior written in fonts that suggest it was scrawled out on the wall of a dark alley with the remnants of a can of spray paint left over after the artist had huffed his brains out. Names like: Twizted Chainz, Black-Hearted Blood Lusters, Barking Madd Inksterz, Broken Dreamz, Raging WeirdoZ, Evil Mind Tattoo, etc.
Finally, I could heave a sigh of relief and park my van. If there is one sure sign of white-bread, suburban, middle to upper-middle class, boring 9 to 5 neighborhoods this is surely it.
And now, I wait for Trixie. She’ll be here in 16 hours or so!
Safe travels, my friends!