03.22.04
A recent description of Mobile
Well, I’m not actually from Mobile, or Alabama, but I’ll do my best….
Mobile is a city which is situated on a bay…but from the vast majoriy of the town, you’d never know it. It just doesn’t have a port town feel. Its filled to overflowing with a strange mix of the over-pious but under-faithful, the snobby old-rich, the downtrodden poor, the redneck, but most of all, the hypocrite.
As you drive down the main east-west drag, there are several things which might catch your eye. Nobody in Mobile feels that they need to stop at a red light until at least 5 seconds after it is completely red. They are completely willing to nose out into traffic at 90 degree angles and completely stop traffic until such time as they are able to make their left turn. Along the sides of the road, especially during summer, there are an assortment of young and old people, sweating profusely in the heat and humidity, waving signs for various businesses, sometimes even costumed in heavy, college mascot style outfits. As if this wasn’t enough personal idiocy given the incompetence of the local drivers, at various major intersections people looking very much like the homeless of more urban cities stand with stacks of newspapers, walkign between the cars stopped at the lights showing people the headlines. And don’t get me started on the assholes in the hummers.
I find Mobiles traffic to be fairly indicative of the city itself. The streets themselves, the foundation of the city, were planned and started in the 18th century, so the town is layed out along an old spoke and wheel system. This of course makes it antiquated, and hard to navigate in. Likewise, the people seem equally stuck in the past, and are equally difficult to understand.
Where suburban sprawl has occured, s strange system of access roads and double traffic lights have sprung up. Clearly, nothing in this city was actually planned. This is because the people here are far to busy planning their Marti Gras celebrations (which they start discussing incessently around october) to actually plan their lives.
The cars that fill the road seem to have an unusally high percentage of expensive, poorly driven sports cars and SUVs (often accompanied by bumper stickers that read “Don’t let my car fool you, my treasure is in heaven”), and poorly driven dilapidated old clunkers (often accompanied by bumper stickers with such moronic phrases as “America, love it or leave it”, “Bush Giveth, Riley Taketh Away” (a reference to the governer, a republican who ran on a no taxes + honesty, but got to office and found out *there was no money for anything*).
Needless to say, I’m not a fan of Mobile. Not to be too terribly negative or anything.
