There is something exciting afoot. Well, maybe exciting’s not the best term. I mean, it’s exciting, but exciting for me. I don’t know if it’s exciting for the rest of you. It might be. It probably won’t be. Time will be the judge. The something? I should tell you the something.
I have located the nearest prison.
Don’t be alarmed. I’m not going to do anything to it. I just needed to know where it was. And to be completely transparent, I didn’t even know I needed to know where it, specifically, was. Just needed something in the area.
I drive around Austin a lot to make money (which I in turn use to finance an NIT blog named The Barking Crow). I used to take people with me. Now I take food with me. I take it to people. You may have seen signs that I have been doing this. Signs like this one:
One consequence of driving around a city a lot is that you’ll need to reference where you’ve been, or you’ll be asked where you’ve been, or you’ll just know where things are and need to describe their location without breaking out a map. In Austin, this can sometimes be difficult, because it’s still growing pretty quickly, meaning not everywhere has a name yet. Sure, there’s the East Side, and Hyde Park, and West Campus, and Downtown, and Old West Austin, and Mueller, and South Lamar, and some others, but two of those are vague, and there are a lot of Austinites ordering delivery to places outside the scope of well-named places. On the outskirts, of which there are many, there are dead zones which are technically Austin but are, in lieu of a landmark, difficult to describe briefly with adequate specificity. In response to this, I’ve fallen into the following habit:
- If the dead zone is between proper Austin and a landmark, say, “…out towards [landmark].” Example: “Drove past that high school Greg Brown went to today.” “Oh? Where’s it at?” “Out towards the Oasis.”
- If the dead zone is equidistant from Austin to a landmark, and somewhere in that landmark’s vicinity, say, “…out by [landmark].” Example: “I’m gonna be a little late for ice cream tonight. Last order took me out by McKinney Falls.”
- If the dead zone is beyond a landmark from Austin, say, “…out past [landmark].” Example: “Hey Stu, Sally said she’s looking at a job in Elgin. Do you know where that’s at?” “Oof. That’s out past Manor.”
- Note: One can interchange “out” with “up” and “down” if desired and applicable. Examples: “Where do the Austin Spurs play?” “Up by Cedar Park.”; “Have you heard of something called the Veloway?” “Yeah—rider recommended it once. It’s down by Shady Hollow.”
It’s a simple system, but there are some areas that lack a landmark. Until recently, a stretch beyond what can really be considered the East Side was one such area, and since the East Side’s so large that saying “out past the East Side” could mean anything from Manor to the airport to, I don’t know, Houston, I’d wanted a landmark. Now, I have it. The prison’s right there. Right where I need it to be.
You may still have a question, and that question may be this: If you didn’t know where the prison was, other people probably don’t know either, right? So when you tell them something’s out by the prison, you’ll still have to explain where the prison is?
The answer to these questions (there were two, you sneaky straw man) are “right” and “maybe.” Maybe, because by telling them something’s “out by the prison,” I’ve done everything required of me. If they really care enough to know, they can push further, and I’ll explain it in full, but if they don’t care, they can drop it and spare themselves me explaining how far, exactly, you have to go on MLK to get to that area, and how it’s not quite Hornsby Bend, and how one time I gave a Lyft ride to one of the descendants of the original Hornsby (the O.H., if you will), or at least the original one to come to this part of Texas, and that descendant was visiting from North Carolina to see his ancestral homeland.
See?
Easier to say that defense contractor’s site with the very, very long driveway that makes me think of Stranger Things even though I’ve never really watched Stranger Things is “out by the prison.”
