Living it up in the RTZ
My friends insist that I live in the country. I try to explain
that I live in the Rural Transition Zone.
”
You live in the country,
”
a friend told me.
”
There are deer, wild turkeys, bobcats, and goats. You live in
the country.
”
Living it up in the RTZ
My friends insist that I live in the country. I try to explain that I live in the Rural Transition Zone.
“You live in the country,” a friend told me. “There are deer, wild turkeys, bobcats, and goats. You live in the country.”
Friends say country, the government says Rural Transition Zone. I say I live in a Paranormal Zone where people get away with stuff they can’t get away with in the city or in the suburbs.
A day in the RTZ begins early. The paranormal activity begins before daylight. On Sunday my day began at 4 a.m. It began not with a whimper, but a scream. From a cow. The neighbors across the road have cows, goats, chickens, pigs, horses, and a dog tied to a rusted trailer. At 4 a.m. one of the cows was stricken with discomfort and howled for 50 minutes.
At 5 a.m. the roosters went off.
At 7 a.m. another neighbor fired up his chainsaw. He cut dry brush for 30 minutes, made a pile, then commenced burning. A mushroom cloud formed and spread out across the valley.
At 8 a.m. the gunfire started. The cows-roosters-horses-goats-pigs-dogs neighbor started shooting guns. I was enjoying a cup of coffee in the sunshine when the shots echoed. My closest neighbor wandered over.
“Never too early to fire guns,” he said. “Probably teaching the kids to shoot. Maybe they’ll hit that cow.”
I told the neighbor it was like a Raiders tailgate party over there. They have enough animals to feed a stadium of drunk people. The animals just kind of wander at random until they feel some kind of pain, then they start screaming. Sometimes I can’t even identify the animal. I thought I heard a chimp one time, but it might have been a pig.
At 9:30 a.m. the chainsaw-burning guy began riding his small motorized vehicle. He has a Chinese mini-bike called an Udoo or something, and he cut the tailpipe off so it would sound more powerful. It’s loud, and sometimes he rides for hours.
I suspect he sometimes rides the Udoo in an altered state of mind. But in the RTZ we mind our own business until something bad happens. Then we have hard feelings and yell at each other. But the authorities are rarely called in.
At 10:30 a.m. another neighbor works on his car. To work on his car he has to play music loud. This helps him concentrate. He usually plays some kind of speed-death-metal. It is difficult to distinguish the singing from the guitars. They both sound like industrial trash compactors.
No one attends church on our road, so the amplified trash-compaction with drums, the Udoo with the tailpipe cut off, and the Raiders tailgate party continue unabated until lunch.
In the afternoon things quiet down. It would be a terrific time to take a nap, but the dog tied to the rusted trailer barks in the afternoon. They keep the dog inside at night, so he has to get his barking done in the afternoon.
In the evening things actually do quiet down. My neighbor speculates that everyone has gone inside to pass out in front of the television. I tell him each family has sat down together to eat dinner. Then they will watch “60 Minutes” in the living room.
“Nice try,” he says. “They’re passed out.”
Nights are dark and normally peaceful. Occasionally someone shares loud music with the neighborhood. It could be trash-compactor rock, country and western, or mariachi. Occasionally someone plays what I call “jellyfish music.” It is music like you hear at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, or on a “Planet Earth” episode. It is slightly less irritating than the industrial rock.
My friends who insist I live in the country say it must be peaceful to live here. They say the stars must shine brighter because there are no streetlights. They say it must be a relief from stress to live in the wide open spaces.
I tell them the serenity can be overpowering. The Rural Transition Zone is worlds away from the danger and stress of the cities and suburbs.
