Fossil fuel

The Road Warrior

(1981)

This is one of those films that always suggests a specific time and place for me, that/those being the two-years-plus-a-summer I spent in West Virginia. After this bit of juiced dystopic lunacy, I came out of the movie theater in downtown Morgantown wanting to drive really fast over the 25 miles of winding mountain roads between me and my home in Grafton. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on which end of the stick you grab), I had by this time plenty of experience in the consequences for a lifelong flatlander of driving really fast, or even moderately fast, or even faster-than-granny fast, on those roads, so on the short walk to the car, and the longer cruise to the outskirts of town, I was able to talk myself at least partway down from the adrenaline high.

Of course, now I watch such films in the safety of my own bunker, and I'm unlikely to hurt myself or anyone else running upstairs afterward. I rarely drive at all anymore, and almost never on a road both winding and rural, and never particularly fast, having become, after all, that granny. Which is, I suppose, why I still need the occasional nostalgic shot of adrenaline, and the reminder that life once offered other dangers than butter fat and unfiltered solar exposure.