Drivers Dodge Death On Hamburger Hill

Ah, the joy of a Sunday afternoon drive. How can one ignore the delicious smell of fresh burgers saturating the air? Or the chance to go shopping at a local store for some clothes?

How? Take one trip through "Hamburger Hill" on any given Sunday, and you'll quickly see how much nicer it is to spend the afternoon at home, watching baseball on TV and popping three-day-old Doritos in your mouth.

Well, maybe not "nicer." But certainly safer.

Sunday is Church Day and many church-goers believe in miracles. But the only miracle I've seen as of late is that no one has been killed or seriously injured in the traffic congestion near the Tanger Factory Outlet Center Drivers Training Course.

Yet.

If you do not use Exit 212 on a regular basis, you might not be aware of what I'm talking about. You're also a lot smarter than most of us drivers, who have to battle with one of the most wicked stretches of road I've ever had the misfortune to travel.

Every weekend, I pass through this area. Or, at least, i used to. Now, if I want to hit I-75, I often go through downtown West Branch and catch Exit 215. For three extra miles, of highway, it's worth the trip.

Why? Simple. Exit 212 is a death trap waiting to happen. It is unorganized. It is crowded. It is dangerous. Combining these factors with some of the most insanely stupid driving possible is nothing less than moronic.

You have a mall and a handful of businesses with parking lot that basically empty out into one spot in the road. Nearby are I-75's exit and entrance ramps.

Add thousands of cars - many pulling boats and trailers - and you get the picture of what it is like to travel this stretch.

With all of this traffic - especially on weekends - you would think maybe, just maybe, someone would have figured a traffic light or two might have been a good idea.

Well, that idea is in the works. Finally, We have Cook Road being repaved and repainted, giving area drivers three lanes along the Hill - one each westbound and eastbound, and a center lane for left-handed turns into any of the stores or restaurants in the area.

Now, this doesn't mean we have more roadway to work with. It just means that (a) we don't have to wait 15 minutes while the most defensive drivers wait for an opening larger than an 18-wheeler to appear, and (b) there will hopefully be fewer maniac drivers sliding into the shoulder to pass said defensive drivers.

But what about a traffic light? Well, the Michigan Department of Transportation recently conducted an intensive survey, which could result in a traffic light.

By next July. Maybe.

The survey took place during mid-week traffic, which is like estimating the Detroit Lions' Super Bowl potential after watching them gang up on the pathetic new England Patriots during one drive of a pre-season game. It's lousy, backward timing.

Someone should have known traffic would be this bad. Why do a survey, when it was obvious from Day One that a traffic light would be needed?

Actions speak louder than surveys. I realize there are guidelines and requirements and all that other stuff. Numbers are needed. But at the same time, we're left with a time bomb ticking away in West Branch Township.

It's enough to ruin a Sunday afternoon drive.

This article originally appeared in the Ogemaw County Herald.

Julia, Kiefer Keeping Tabloids Hard At Work

Unless you've been hiding underneath a rock or are oblivious to today's major national news stories, you are probably keeping an eye on the biggest, most important and extremely controversial headline-making story of the decade: Julia Roberts leaving Kiefer Sutherland high and dry at the altar.

Yes, this emotionally depressing saga of a Hollywood lust story gone awry has kept tabloid journalists - both print and broadcast - quite busy.

In fact, if Julia hadn't told Kiefer to blow their relationship out his ear, we'd be more concerned with real news stories, like Detroit Piston Dennis Rodman being sued for jumping on top of a fan during a basketball game while chasing a loose ball, or Cher not having sex for 10 months.

But Julia had to dump Kiefer on the eve of their wedding, and because of that, tabloid newspapers and programs are going ga-ga, spreading five-inch-tall headlines and 15-minute blurbs about this couple.

Not to mention the cast of rogues who have made life miserable for the duo: A sexy Canadian disc jockey who used to be close pals (in the truest sense of the word) with Kiefer; Kiefer's best friend, who supposedly took off with the elusive Miss J; a stripper named Raven; and a reporter at a weekly newspaper in West Branch.

Yes, the somber details are beginning to leak, but the whole story has not been told. Left alone, almost obscured from the national limelight, is how this reporter is really the cause of the Julia-Kiefer breakup.

The National Enquirer has not yet picked up this bit of information, which surprises me, being that they are a tabloid of such high standards and morals. Nor have The Sun, Star, People Magazine or even Soap Opera Digest. This is depressing.

It's not fun to be ignored when such a newsworthy story involves you, but no one seems to notice.

So I am coming out with my side of the story. It is time to set the record straight, before the jumbo headlines scream words such as, "JOURNALIST WINS JULIA'S ETERNAL LOVE; HEARTBROKEN KIEFER THREATENS TO EITHER COMMIT SUICIDE OR PLAY BINGO," or "GABA: 'JULIA'S MINE, AND THAT GEEK KIEFER CAN GO CRY IN HIS ROOT BEER.'"

Let me begin by telling you that I have never actually met any of the parties involved. At least, not knowingly. Although I did spend a week in New York City a few years back, and may have seen Julia walking down the street, humming a Roy Orbison song. At least, it looked like her.

It was about that same time that the movie The Lost Boys came out, starring (among a cast of 10s) Kiefer, as a sort of modern-day Batman (the bloodsucker, not the Caped Crusader).

I thought nothing of it until about a year ago, after catching Julia in her triple-platinum selling movie, Pretty Woman, the epic about a girl who walks down the street (literally), the type of girl you like to meet (hardly). It starred Julia, her hair, Richard Gere and that same Orbison song. The irony was uncanny.

Anyway, I didn't especially like the film. Too predictable. I wanted a more believable ending to the movie, like Gere leaving for France with some swanky bimboesque Canadian disc jockey who stripped on the air while Julia sniveled in despair. You know, reality.

So i wrote her, telling her that, while I thought she did a marvelous job, and that her hair looked great, and that she was probably the best-looking and sexiest silver-screen hooker since Rebecca deMornay in Risky Business, the ending was a bit tepid. (For that matter, the entire plot was rather lame, but that's another story.)

She didn't write back, but her most recent film, Dying Young, is a little more believable. (She loses the guy to leukemia, rather than to a stripper. I think.) Even if the class difference is still as proclaimed as in Pretty Woman (ultra-rich dude, struggling, poor dudette). At least it's not like Beaches, with Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey's ultra-huge fake wax lips.

However, I think she really took the "realism" suggestion to heart when dealing with Kiefer. This was, for him, probably the lousiest movie ending he's ever had thrown in front of him. Talk about ad-libbing lines, these guys aren't even reading scripts. The best writers in hollywood can't come up with story plots this deep, this realistic.

So my involvement with this whole affair has been kept in the dark. Which is good, because I don't need the hassle of nosy tabloid reporters phoning me in the middle of the night, asking if it was true that I fathered Julia's two-headed love child.

Now THAT would be a major story.

This article originally appeared in the Ogemaw County Herald.