It’s not often that two news items pop up in the same week begging for me to add my two-pennyworth of comment, so two in one day was just too good to pass up.
They came on Wednesday, and both involved Interstate 45. You will have seen them, no doubt, in your Thursday copy of The Daily News, neatly topping and tailing the front page.
First to start the office buzzing was the morning rush-hour discovery of a dead elk on the feeder road near Holland Road. Where could this furry fellow have come from, we all wondered.
By late afternoon, we had all moved on to other things when we heard of a car being driven off the same freeway into a saltwater pool near Omega Bay. Not as interesting a story as the mysterious elk, it seemed, but off trotted Chris Paschenko to check it out.
He returned with the news that the car was one of the world’s rarest production models, a Bugatti Veyron — a car so rare, in fact, that only 200 have ever been made and only 15 are driving the roads of the United States.
Make that 14. Sitting in two feet or more of saltwater with your 1,001-horsepower engine gurgling itself to a spluttering halt is not conducive to one’s next 253-mph getaway from a downtown red light.
NASCAR drivers would probably call it a case of dash and splash.
So how did our 4,004-footed carbon-fiber friend come to join its more modestly shod hide-and-hair chum in prone position at the side of our county’s main road?
That seems to be the don’t-ask-don’t-tell question of the week.
Being dead, Elkie brooks no banter with inquisitive recorders of county concerns and, being a bit less bold than before, the owner of the Bugatti refuses to answer critical questions, including his name, and, apparently, has fled to Lufkin to lick his pride and pecuniary wounds.
He did admit to being on the prowl for real estate before laying the blame for his wreck on a passing pelican, saying it had made him drop his cell phone, leading to loss of control of the car.
Ah ha. I may not be the world’s savviest property investor, but I can recite Galveston Real Estate 101 for sufferers of Lufkin expansion syndrome: Our saltwater pools are not ripe for redevelopment and pelicans can’t pass a plodding pickup, let alone jabbering gents hammering along at a third the speed of sound.
Blame yourself, matey boy, for dialing while driving — and thank your lucky stars we line our freeway with ditches and not bottomless pits.
And, should anyone ever ask whether you can drive really fast cars, here’s your answer: “The pelican.”
As for poor old Elkie, the mystery of where he came from will probably require an investigator with the mind of Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot.
Was he lost, on the wrong side of the road while heading south for the winter? Had he fallen from the sky while dashing, prancing and dancing as Santa drove an early test run for his Christmas trip?
Hmm, maybe it’s not a case for Sherlock or Hercule after all. Perhaps it should go to Inspector Clouseau — or one of his ilk.
Englishman and former Fleet Street journalist Ian White is editor of Applause. Contact him by e-mail at ian.white(at)galvnews.com.
