Cousin Elmers
Driving my just washed shiny red pickup, I let the scent of the car wash's vanilla air freshener fill my nostrils. I was headed across town to Cousin Elmer's Thrift and Engine Parts Store. The windows of the truck were down and sunrays which had been shattered by the giant looming eucalyptus trees standing sentinel on the road were splayed across my forearm. I bounced along Grand Avenue trying in vain to avoid the uncomfortable ruts that had recently been enhanced by a hard rainy season. Repaved in some places and deep troughs in others, I found myself comparing the disrepair to the city in which I lived. My friends from San Diego were at a loss as to why I would choose to live in Lake Elsinore. A town of great contrasts, I recalled traveling this same road during the previous winter and seeing a Gattling gun, set up like a cannon, in a front yard with a sign that read "$500.00 or trade for a PlayStation w/games". Two b
As I drew closer to Cousin Elmer's, the yard, not much bigger than the football field at the high school, presented itself. An eclectic collection of old and new, hard to find equipment parts, and just plain junk, it seemed a microcosm of the entirety of Lake Elsinore. The yard sat framed by a rusty metallic hedge of lawnmowers, banana seat bicycles, and corroded oil drums. Brand new blazing red diesel fuel tanks, looking like a bold slash of cheap lipstick hurriedly applied across an old woman's mouth, sat upon the pallid wrinkled texture of the parking lot sand. Other scraps of machinery formed not a cacophony of rusted parts, but rather an orchestra of pieces that Cousin Elmer had arranged into sections. Yellow-tanked power mowers rested in silence just left of older diesel drums, formerly red, now faded orange or pink. Standing proudly at attention, like war veterans in Fourth of July parades, still proud of having served, were rows of o
Some common words found in the essay are:
Lake Elsinore, Fourth July, Royce Corniche, San Diego, Cousin Elmer, Grand Avenue, Cousin Elmer's, Engine Store, Elmer's Driving, I'M SERIOUS, cousin elmer's, san diego, lake elsinore, sign read,
Approximate Word count = 643
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
|
