the race is over

many years ago when i landed in Tampa Florida from the slow motion and romantic city of Shiraz, i didn't expect to see a city of Lincoln town cars, pink Cadillac, fuss ball hair do and early birds dinner at 5:00 pm.
the picture that i had was far from what i had growing up of united states, it was more like Manhattan.
full of hustle and bustle. or something of Texas landscape.

this was different. here the activity was bingo, driving 25 mile per hour and the fashion was bleached hair, ice blue eyeshadow and hot pink lipstick which went with their toasted tan and New York accent.

this beautiful city of Tampa has a boulevard which we lived on. it was the longest drive by the bay that stretches about 15 miles. it looks at the Davis island and harbor island. it ends one side in the port of Tampa and the other in mac dill air force space, yes that is the famous air force space.

any way i, like all other nice immigrant, got a car and registered for English school, and with a help of a translator friend got a driver license, ( she basically told the officer the right answer to every question while pretending to ask it from me). and started learning to read the map and find my way around the city.

back in my home town of Shiraz, Iran, our pass time was and is to cruise really fast in the congested street. basically the only activity for young adult comes down to borrowing a car from their dad and impressing other kids with their maneuver in street full of people, cars, buses and sometime animals.
compare what i am used to, driving here was unreal, people blinked 10 minutes before they turn. they would drive in one lane all the way to their destination. so racing with them was racing with the turtles. i would always win the race.

my everyday schedule was to go to school from 7 to 3 pm and went home, did homework. part of my homework was to watch 2 hours of TV.
of course i got hooked on opera right away. in 90s opera was more about the relationships and what went wrong in society. it was Jerry springer in more classy way. in my broken English i would hear how people got murder for saying the wrong things to someone or just being in wrong place in wrong time. it was all strange to me. and later in evening i would repeat it to my husband and he would say, that yes it is very dangerous out there.

a few weeks of this routine completely made me isolated from human and humane society. i was paranoid at everything and everybody. and it didn't help that my neighbor was an older man that picked out every time the elevator opened up.

in one of those muggy afternoon, i had my windows opened and cranked the music up, trying ro brush of homesickness. i stopped at the light and glanced to the car next to me. it was a man with Golden teeth waving his four finger at me. his car was broken and in bad shape. and if his smile wasn't bad enough he winked also.

as you can imagined, i thought to myself this is it. he is the kind they are talking about on TV., so i pushed the pedal little harder. i was hoping i could loose him. but he was right behind me. by next light he pulled next to me again. i tried avoiding him but he was still waving his four finger and he was not smiling. i was ready to cry, i closed my windows and i was racing the street when i spotted the police cars are blocking the road. i was a little relieved.
then i saw him waving at me to pull over to the side and flashing his light on top of his car. still unsure of the identity i pulled by the rest of the police cars.
i am in full blown hysteria. i speak in Farsi and English, incoherent completely. he said," ma am i told you nicely this is 40 mph street by waving my finger. you went faster. i tried to warn you again, still you went faster. before i stopped you, you were going 80 mph."
so they searched my purse and car and trunk, they told me," ma am this is not a race. " they pardoned me without ticket.

now, many more years later, Tampa is not like before thanks to the 2000 boom, we had 29 tower going up in one year in down town and even Donald trump thought we were worthy of his name for a tower.
the senior citizens have moved to a sun city retirement center.

the landscape of my life has changed too. i have 3 kids of my own which one is just started to drive. he is cautious driver, but there are many young fellow that cut in front of him. he gets all angry. and when he pulls over he says, this is not a race.
as for me, i just smile.