Public transportation is not a strong point of High Point. I think there are two buses in town that you never see running after dark. Everything shuts down early except the few bars in town. The humid nights seem to swallow everything in its path that dares to venture to one of the many fast food restaurants that invade this tiny city.
In fact, it is my belief that the town is not welcome to people in general. Most of the buildings in "downtown" sit empty less the two times a year that International Furniture Market takes over High Point and gives the impression that there is indeed life here. It's like driving your car through Universal Studios with its mock storefronts and an occasional oddball running across the street barefoot. There are times I'm tempted to go tear out the few flowers you might see planted along Main Street, just to prove that they're not plastic.
There are few sidewalks encouraging pedestrian traffic. Crosswalks are more rare. I believe this is ploy by the City to off "unwelcomes". I can see them sitting in their city council meetings saying, "Well if we minimize the number of sidewalks and only put in four crosswalks, the likelihood of pedestrians being hit increases. And who walks? Anyone worth having in our mock town should be driving a car!" This comment is then followed by the evil, twanged laughter as they rub their buttery hands together.
But little did they anticipate the backlash they would encounter by removing modes of pedestrian traffic. When the City apparently didn't act, the folk of High Point got creative.
There was the man driving to the convenience store on his ride-on lawn mower that I previously wrote about. He drove this on the road, and I laughed as I flashed back to my first drive with my ex-husband through Sun City where golf carts are street legal. I will never forget pulling up to a stoplight and looking to my husband's left and seeing the shiny, red golf cart waiting in the neighboring lane. I remember thinking how insane that was, but it didn't hold an ounce of craziness next to a ride-on lawn mower, which I'm sure is not street legal, but according to my sister, is not that rare around these parts.
This was odd enough in itself, but then came my first encounter with a motorized wheelchair. It was many months ago and I was making my evening drive home from work down Main Street. Everything as normal as normal can be, when a SUV two vehicles in front of me swerved erratically into the left-hand lane. What the? Then the car in front of me repeated the same maneuver. As that car swerved I saw the problem. Not that far in front of me was a man in a motorized wheelchair driving in my lane against traffic!
"Shiiiitttttt!" I screamed as I quickly glanced over my left shoulder and swerved into the other lane. The man didn't flinch at all. He seemed to be in a haze of alcohol, medication, or sadness. He just continued to drive his wheelchair in the road against traffic. I watched in my rearview mirror as the cars behind me repeated the same dance of "Avoid vehicular manslaughter." I grew angry as I continued my drive home, not with the man, but with this town because there were no sidewalks in that area for him to drive on. Unless the man wanted to go braffing in the grass, he had miles without a sidewalk to access.
This anger was revisited a few months ago when sitting at a stop light, I watched as a motorized wheelchair had to cross the street with no crosswalk, light OR sidewalk. He waited until the light was red for his street and began, but the eager beavers in their cars tried to outrun him as they made their left onto the road he was crossing. I watched in horror as he weaved around cars unwilling to stop. The plot of the City to off the non-drivers was closer to being reality. I was waiting to see someone hit one of these wheelchairs that had no other option but to be one with the cars. I can just see the first dazed man muttering, "It's got wheels so fuck 'em!"
Yesterday came a new sight. I was once again driving home down Main Street when a car a ways ahead of me in the right lane, swerved into mine. I knew this swerve. I know what this is. Sure enough there was a motorized wheelchair. Different man, and this time he drove down the ramp from the porn store into the road. Thing is, there was a sidewalk in this part of town. Alas, it apparently didn't hold the thrills for him that the open road did. He drove in the right-hand land with traffic, as cars swerved and beeped at him. As I passed him, I saw he was smiling. Was it from the adventure and risk he was taking by driving his wheelchair? Then I remembered where he'd just come from and laughed. No. I was quite sure it was what was in his bag.
