Glenn Kubish

It is difficult to feel nostalgia for that which has not yet passed away. Difficult, but not impossible. This is the conclusion drawn from a silent encounter with a motorist  on 103 Ave this morning. I realized I will miss the wave of thanks. The wave of thanks, for those who don't know the arm I sing of, is the short wave that motorists in Edmonton still give, primarily to other motorists, but also to pedestrians and, in my case, bicycle riders, for kindnesses received in the give and take of automobilized travel. I am not sure if the wave of thanks exists in cities bigger than mine, Edmonton. The wave might simply be a quaint remnant  of the glory days of motoring, when we still tried to communicate car to car as human beings. My grandfather would wave hello to other motorists in the early 1970s. I remember that vividly. The wave of thanks happens when a motorist feels gratitude to another commuter for being allowed to merge, or to get into the flow of tra...

Most of the vehicles that use a city's traffic system have too much power for the system.  And so there are all kinds of built-in controls that automobile drivers face or endure or ignore at their own, or a pedestrian's, peril. These micro-control mechanisms include: lanes, the proximity of other vehicles, the shape of the roadway, stop signs, traffic lights, and controls from other realms, namely, weather conditions. You can drive an automobile only so fast. You can save only so much time in a typical city commute. Infrastructure doesn't exactly sound like freedom. Even if the open road calls:  (Full disclosure: I ride that short section of 104 Ave on the sidewalk, slowly, stopping for all pedestrians encountered, saying hello, so that I am not killed on the roadway.)

Groat Road, Now Groat Ode (A haiku by kub on the imminent reopening to motorized traffic of the serpentine roadway) A pulse of auto Down the dammed Groat Road ravine Frees car reservoir. Then