You'd think so, but somehow, whenever I point my pickup truck toward downtown I list slightly off to the west and find myself driving the now significantly less efficient South First route.
Now, South Congress is a lot of fun, too. Its businesses are getting a lot of attention these days, and there a bunch of cute places and fun stuff popping up all along the road. The view of the Capital building looming up ahead is pretty impressive, and, all in all, it can be a pretty nice way to start the day. When I take the bus, I take the Number 13 route, which is Congress all the way, and it’s nearly always a pleasant ride. I mean, it’s that I don’t like South Congress…
The thing is, though, that the personality of South First is addictive. I'm compelled to roll my truck tires over South First Street as often as I can. I’m driven to drive past the herberias and the panderias and the body shops and the Tex-Mex restaurants. I need to peer into the gallery windows like the weird paper-mâché lady who is so often propped up outside Laughing at the Sun.
Once, when I was on South First and heading home from work, a guy walking on the sidewalk by the street lost his grip on the rooster he was carrying, and the big bird flapped out in front of my car. I dodged, the car behind me braked and skidded, and an oncoming vehicle nearly ran up on the sidewalk. But in the end, nobody hit anyone and no one was hurt (though I have my doubts about the long-term fate of that chicken.).
That’s a pretty good story in a city of 500,000.
© 2000 E.V.
Hobbs
This page added August 29.
