Just got back from my first real vacation in 24 years
All images courtesy of Del Stone Jr.
It was my first real vacation in 24 years.
I’d sneaked in weekends here and there – three days in backwoods Louisiana, where the kudzu is thicker than the Cajun accents, or a weekend of schmoozing at a writers’ convention in Central Florida – but for the first time since my father passed away in 1998 I was leaving the homestead for a week to relax with friends.
The location was a small town called Blue Ridge in northern Georgia, just a white lightning run from the Tennessee border. My friends Richard, Joy and Sarah retired there after a work journey took them from Fort Walton Beach to Virginia, Alabama, and Colorado. I had visited them in Virginia and Alabama – Virginia was my favorite; sorry, Alabama – and now the attraction of mountains, and a home-cooked Thanksgiving dinner, was too much to resist.
I was surprised by the amount of crap I felt I had to take with me – my pill organizer with my vitamins and prescriptions; the waist band I wear when I exercise; my pricey enamel-restoring toothpaste. When packing for the trip I promised myself I’d bring only the essentials. Funny how so much stuff has become “essential.”
I worried I’d become drowsy during the hours of monotonous driving on the interstate, but the opposite proved to be true. It had been so long since I’d dealt with finicky cruise controls, near suicidal drivers, inexplicable interstate backups, believing I could make it to the next rest stop before my bladder erupted like Mount St. Helen, and the terror of surviving traffic in a major, and I mean major, metropolitan area like Atlanta, that I remained in a constant state of high alert.
Atlanta taught me that indeed, I am growing older, because in the past I considered the hair-raising driving practices of many Atlantans to be merely irritating. Now, they scared the hell out of me. Bumper-to-bumper at 80 mph? Had I wandered into the Daytona 500? Was I winning?
Also, I managed to get lost and instead of taking the I-575 bypass around the innards of that crazed town I ended up in something called an “express lane,” which means I will now be receiving a ticket in the mail from the Georgia Department of Transportation because I don’t have the special Peachy Keen Pass required to drive on that road. So thank you, Atlanta, for further eroding my meager checking account.
Another driving terror awaited when I reached Richard and Joy’s neighborhood. I shouldn’t call it a “neighborhood” – it’s actually a beautifully laid-out development on the side of a mountain. Gorgeous houses are spaced about 300 yards apart on very steep inclines. Trees and underbrush have been preserved, unlike developments in Florida, where the land is graded down to the earth’s mantel and then trees from Mars are planted to replace the native trees felled by the bulldozer’s blade. Life in Blue Ridge is like living in a treehouse.
The problem lies in reaching those gorgeous houses. The road was a narrow two-lane with very steep inclines and stomach-wrenching declines, with practically no road shoulder and near cliffs approaching the edge of the asphalt – at least that’s what it looked like to this Florida flatlander who lives an average of 12 feet above sea level.
Oh, and another thing. It was cold. Of course it was cold. I was 400 miles farther north than my usual stomping grounds.
And because you’re in the mountains, you’re also in the low layers of clouds, which meant it was often drippy and wet. It rained the first two days I was there and remained cloudy and damp the rest of the time. But then, when I came back home it rained like hell down here, too, so maybe it’s just me. Maybe I attract rain, like PigPen in the Peanuts comic strip attracted dirt.
Blue Ridge appears to be a favored vacation spot for Floridians. I’d say a quarter of the license plates “hailed” from the Sunshine State, if a license plate can hail. That explains the crazed drivers, at least the ones not displaying Cobb County plates.
The Cliff Notes version?
1. Packed too much crap.
2. Big city drivers – scary.
3. Cold – bad.
4. Mountains – also scary.
I hope to get back there in the spring, when I won’t look like such a freak wearing shorts. Spring should be gorgeous. Summer, too. And because you’re in the mountains, it’s cooler. And fall, with all the leaf colors.
Now that I think about it, I chose the one season of the year when maybe it wasn’t so great to visit. I need to get back up there and see what the place really looks like.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, Ello and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .
Image courtesy of Flickr user Alvin Trusty by way of a Creative Commons license. https://www.flickr.com/photos/trustypics/
Do you know how to drive a stick shift?
I received an unnerving introduction to stick shifts when I was 14. My dad and I had been out hunting that day. When we got back to the truck, he climbed into the passenger seat. I asked him what he was doing. His one-word answer was: “Drive.”
What I would be “driving” was a Datsun pickup truck with “four on the floor,” meaning the shifter was on the transmission hump that ran the length of the cabin. I would be working a manual choke and using the clutch while wearing hunting boots, not optimal for somebody driving a stick shift for the first time. Worse, I had never, ever received any instruction on what exactly I was supposed to do.
I understood the theory of a stick shift: Push in the clutch, shift into first gear, give it a little gas and slowly let out the clutch until the truck got moving, then cycle through the higher gears as my speed increased. I had watched my cousin do it as we plowed through the pastures at my uncle’s farm in his beat up old Ford.
But watching and doing were two different things.
I got the truck moving and actually managed to run it up into fourth without any major missteps. Then Dad lost his nerve and asked me to pull over, as we were nearing Freeport and he didn’t want me driving through traffic.
Over the years I drove both automatics and sticks, and developed a pronounced love of the stick. My first car, which I inherited from my older sister, a Pontiac Astre, was a stick, and I drove it for five years. I even taught my friend Scott how to drive a stick in that car – I wanted to see if it could be done without yelling.
My second car, the hated Pontiac Firebird, was an automatic. I ditched it after two years and went back to a stick in my Nissan Pulsar, and I never looked back.
My current ride, a Scion tC, is a stick. I’ll probably always drive sticks.
A manual transmission gives me the illusion of being in control – don’t ask me why. It’s as if I’m one with the vehicle. I feel a lot more comfortable knowing I can drive anything out there.
To this day I still pop the clutch from time to time. And with pedals only a few millimeters apart, my big clodhopper Doc Martens sometimes hit the brake and gas pedals at the same time.
I will know I’ve truly grown old when I switch from a stick to an automatic. My right hand and left foot won’t know what to do with themselves.
Zoom zoom will only be an echo from the past.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, Ello and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .
Image courtesy of Freepik.
If this column leaves you steaming, don’t call me to complain.
I’m not here. In fact, I’m on vacation. I intentionally waited until I was far, far away before publishing this column, because I am a gutless weenie. You’ll see why.
This week, my complaint is with bad driver. Not just any old bad driver.
I’ve been driving since 1972 (often through hip-deep snow … your parents have told you about it). And I’ve driven everywhere, from the eight-lane shooting galleries of Los Angeles to the perilous, two lane left-side-of-the-road back roads of the Bahamas.
With all this experience, you’d think I’d have a pretty good idea of who can handle a vehicle and who can’t. Actually, I do.
Most people would single out elderly drivers, or teen-age boys, as the most serious road menaces.
It’s true that elderly people sometimes create hazardous driving conditions because they can’t see as well, or react as quickly, as we younger folks.
And yes, teen-age boys with access to a healthy dose of cubic inches under the hood present a serious hazard to other drivers’ existence.
But a far greater threat exists. That threat is:
The single white female, aged 18 to 22.
All my observations tell me that this group of drivers is the most seriously deficient in driving skills and judgment. Come upon an accident and chances are, a single white female, aged 18 to 22, will have been involved.
The single white female usually drives a compact imported car, like a Nissan, a Toyota or a Honda, “drive” being a figurative word – the single white female whips the dickens out of those hapless four-cylinder beasts. What began its mechanical life as a sedate econobox becomes a ragged-out Indy racer under the well-muscled gas-pedal foot of the single white female.
They blast away from stoplights as if the clearance sale at The Gap were in its dying moments, and screech to a stop at the next light as if they’d spotted a pair of Wayfarers lying in the road.
They do this rain or shine, because the single white female has no comprehension of the laws of physics. “Why can’t I tailgate the car ahead of me at 40 mph in a driving rainstorm?” she asks. “Friction? What’s that?”
But of course, they never see any of these things happening, because they are too busy (a) applying makeup as they fly down Eglin Parkway at 58 mph, (b) blabbing on cellular telephones as they apply makeup with the other hand and steer with their elbows, and (c) yanking strands of hair from their cell phones and makeup applicators.
OK, so 90 percent of this is exaggeration, and 8 percent is just me trying to aggravate a heretofore neglected segment of the population. Still, there’s that 2 percent of truth. …
The solution to this problem is simple: Require all girls of this age group to drive Geo Metros, or Ford Aspires. Don’t give them any real horsepower until they’re a cranky old geezer like me.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, Ello and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .
Image courtesy of Alessandro Avilés of Pexels.
Confession is good for the soul. So is ranting. Here is this week’s rant.
YOU STUPID IDIOT DRIVERS!
Not you. But you other morons who tricked the DMV into giving you a license to kill.
YOU DRIVE ME CRAZY!
After years of careful consideration, I’ve decided you drive badly because: You’re stupid.
How do you know if you’re stupid? Fortunately, I found this screening test. Take it and see how you do:
If you stop when you’re supposed to go, get out of the gene pool. I drove from Ohio to Fort Walton Beach in one day, through snow, ice, urban traffic, blah blah blah. My only risk with death occurred at the intersection of state roads 123 and 85, when the woman ahead of me STOPPED her car in the acceleration lane to check for oncoming traffic. I ran off the road to avoid hitting her. If my car had been equipped with half-inch-thick steel brush bars, the back of her Caddy would’ve looked like a Hibachi grill and the brain trust behind the wheel would be showing off a neck brace.
If you change lanes while driving through an intersection or where a smaller road joins a major road, you need to discover the wonderful world of pedestrianism. I’m waiting to turn right onto Lewis Turner. The woman behind me is riding my tail – her car is practically shoving mine into the road. The right lane is clear, but a blue car is approaching in the left lane. I start to turn. Suddenly, the man in the blue car whips into my lane. I jam the brakes, the woman behind me goes into advanced Type A defibrillation, and the man in the blue car drives blithely onward, a death wish floating in his wake.
If you pull into traffic and instead of staying in the right lane you swing out into the left lane, you really need to move to England.
If you drive slowly in the left lane, you need an anti-lobotomy. Driving in Germany was a gratifying experience. Traffic flowed smoothly – the speedier cars flashed by on the left, and the slowpokes did their thing in the right lane. Returning to the States was an exercise in frustration. Big, fat, cellulite Buicks and Mercurys plodding along in the left lane, their owners oblivious to anything but their own pleasure and convenience, traffic backed up for miles behind them, everyone hoping that one day these buffet mavens would evolve into a higher life form and hoist that big land yacht into the right lane.
If you pull out in front of oncoming traffic and accelerate to 12 mph, you deserve whatever horrible fate the karmic waves mete out to you. Once, I saw justice served. A little smart aleck in a Chevette – in total defiance of courtesy or traffic laws or the laws of physics – darted in front of a truck and stopped at a red light. I believe you can still find individual Chevette molecules at that intersection.
If you pull into a median turn-around and leave the rear end of your car hanging out in traffic, we all hope you like driving a compact.
That’s the screening test. The trick is to check yourself AFTER you’ve read this. If you’re still driving like this, do us all a favor.
Take a taxi.
This column was published in the April 22, 1998 Northwest Florida Daily News and is used with permission.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, Ello and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .