I feel like one of the people trying to flee Houston in the face of hurricane Rita. We’re stuck on the highway of hope with everyone else, bumper to bumper traffic, not moving, hours ticking by, gas gauge going down, afraid to run the air conditioner and use more gas, shutting off the motor only to turn it on again and inch forward time after time. We seem to be moving ahead at something just above zero miles per hour.

Cars are overheating as the weather gets warmer and warmer. Some are trying to pull off the road, pull over to the shoulder and get out of the way. How many of them have broken down ahead of me? How many now can’t get out of the way, useless and helpless in their lane? Will I be the next to fail?  

News helicopters keep circling overhead. They’re all here, CNN, ABC, NBC, local television, it’s an alphabet soup of news reporters and photographers all noting our crawl and telling the world about our plight. Every once in awhile, we hear the radio telling us that highways are jammed, people are breaking down, and help is on the way. One even said gas trucks were coming which makes me wonder how much that’s going to cost us, how much have I got in my pocket, will they take credit cards, will there be some “Mr. Good Wrench” wiping our windshield and asking if we want to check the oil, or will it somehow be self service? How are they going to get here?

A couple of hours ago and about two miles back, we passed a gas station where people were lined up to get gas. Maybe I should have pulled off and filled my tank. But did they even have gas? Would people let us back in line? How much longer can this go on?

When the kids aren’t asking “how much further” and the wife stops asking me to “do something,” asking what we’re all going to do, or just sits there perspiring and brooding, I occasionally look to my left where there are four lanes of nearly empty southbound highway. Why aren’t we over there? Why aren’t those lanes open for northbound traffic only? Maybe we could make four or five miles per hour of headway instead of almost nothing.

And who’s in the occasional car, van, or truck we see heading south? Are they emergency rescue people or more news people heading for the points of Rita’s impact? Most of them don’t even look over at us. Is that because they’ve already seen our line stretching for miles ahead?

When I look around on my side, I see vehicles that were advertised climbing mountains, speeding through swamps and bayous, sturdy and unstoppable, independent four wheel drives and independent suspensions climbing over everything. I especially remember the one about a cowboy who finally reaches his destination with a pickup covered in mud, dirt, and dust, who then gets out, pulls out his handkerchief, and wipes off the chrome plate in the grille that says “GMC” so everyone can see that this is the rough and ready off road truck to buy.

But I don’t see any of these “rough and ready” vehicles pulling off the expressway to go “off road” and this is Texas where you see people standing in the shade of a telephone pole. Now lives are at stake. I don’t see the occasional “Hummer” I’ve encountered in Houston traffic, shopping plazas, or parked by the shot-and-a-beer bars. Are they tearing through the countryside outside of my vision? I don’t think so. I think those guys are wealthy enough to fly out in their own planes. But then, my dry cleaner has one and he says that Bush gave him a hundred thousand dollar tax credit for buying it for the business.

Instead, we all sit here obediently waiting. But waiting for what? Are we waiting for someone in uniform to come by and tell us what to do, maybe lead us to safety? What’s going to happen when the expected big winds and rains come? Will we all be blown into one big new junk yard pile? How many of us will survive and where will we go?

People are starting to get out of their cars. They talk to each other or wander around aimlessly. Some are just restless or trying to cool off. Others are trying to look ahead to see if there’s a break in the line, what’s holding us up, if anybody else is moving, or looking for a recreational vehicle with a toilet. Have you ever been in a riot or a subway train that suddenly stopped in the middle of a tunnel and just sat there? People go through stages of anxiety before they panic.

Then I start to think about the stories I’ve been told and the movies I’ve seen, things that I never paid much attention to, or just found amusing. It wouldn’t happen to me.  I remember what my dad told me about the riots in Chicago when people were really upset about the war in Vietnam, how Mayor Daley tried to break up gatherings in the parks and how people threw bricks at police cars. We aren’t too far from that today.

I also remember the stories he told me about the beginnings of the Cold War and how years of study showed that it was absolutely impossible to evacuate large cities in less than a week or two under the best advanced notice, and how the government talked about acceptable casualties or “collateral damage” in the event of a nuclear attack and counterattack. Recent and funny movies like “Blast from the Past” dealt with the bomb shelters people built in the Fifties and the consequences of being locked-up for thirty years or more.

In those times, most people just resigned themselves to the idea that if there was a nuclear attack they didn’t want to survive anyway. What’s the point in coming out of a bomb shelter to scratch out a living in complete devastation?  

Have we really progressed so far away from that today? Look what’s happening with unwarranted invasions, treaties, torture, depleted uranium and mini-nukes for field forces. Are the media showing movies like “Dr. Strangelove” today when we need them?

Oops, here come the helicopters again.

They’re looking for blood and heroes. And then they’ll be gone just as fast as they came. Did you hear anything about Florida after four hurricanes hit those people last year? No, as soon as October came and the hurricanes stopped coming, the major media didn’t cover a thing about rebuilding or how many were still suffering.

You know, I’m beginning to think that if Anderson Cooper, Bob Franken, or any of the media’s heavy hitters show up in your neighborhood you might as well resign yourself to the fact that the Grim Reaper has come to your doorstep. It’s even worse than having Donald Rumsfeld knock and ask to speak with your son.

But then we’ve got those who seem to thrive on war and tragedy, those who look forward to shooting people, who even tell us our economy depends on war, and that every patriotic American should be ready to lay down his life to keep things going the way they are.

Those people made sense before we became an empire. Now, it’s the “land of the free and the home of the brave” that’s considered a rogue nation willing to entice and entrap anyone with our bogus wealth and stomp all over them if they don’t play along.

Well, take a look around you. Where are these heroes now and what are are they doing on the highway to help is coming? Can you find any of them with solutions? They don’t even have the nerve to take their “off road” vehicles into the fields. They’re waiting for orders and don't want to break the law even while they think death and destruction is breathing down their backs.

Here we sit. All together, democrats and republicans alike, America’s middle class home and car owners, obediently waiting for something miraculous to get us out of this one. Waiting for the "calvary." Once it's over, we'll try to go back to things the way they were. We'll try to forget about it. After all, what can one man do about it anyway? There are much more pleasant things to think about and it certainly doesn't feel good to be stuck on hopeless.