Chili Dawgs Always Bark at Night. Lewis Grizzard

hour, but due to heavy traffic at Atlanta’s Hartsfield, you have to hold for twenty minutes.

      You finally touch down in Atlanta three hours and change after you left for O’Hare.

      But then you’ve got to ride the shuttle to the main terminal and wait on your bags. After that, it’s a cab ride into town. You get to your hotel after what has at least been a four-hour ordeal.

      But the two hundred-mile-an-hour train from Chicago to Atlanta:

      It leaves Union Station, a short cab ride from the Loop, where you work. Zoom, off you go. It’s smooth. It’s relaxing. There’s a guy next to you coughing, so you go to the club car for a drink.

      There’s a few quick stops, like the old days when the train stopped at every crossing. Maybe there’s ten minutes in Louisville. And another in Nashville. And Chattanooga.

      You arrive in Atlanta’s downtown station, let’s say in five hours.

      It’s about the same as the flight, only think of the hassle you’ve avoided and the money you’ve saved in ground transportation.

      Putting a modern, efficient passenger system to work in this country would probably cost trillions, I admit.

      So let’s make peace with the Russians and then use all the money we’re spending on missiles to bring back the trains.

      What a great idea, and I know how to get the president to agree.

      Take Air Force One away from him and put him out there in the crowded, unfriendly skies with the rest of us.

      Why Not a Jerk Patrol?

      New York City has formed what I presume to be the first bigot patrol in the long history of law enforcement in this country.

      The move, announced last week, was instigated after outbreaks of racial violence in the city, “just like down South,” as Mayor Ed Koch put it.

      Before racial incidents occurred in such places as New York’s Howard Beach, Mayor Koch thought bias and prejudice ended just south of Baltimore someplace.

      According to reports I read, New York’s bigot patrol will work like this:

      Cops in plainclothes or disguise will go into neighborhoods with a history of racial disturbances and act as bait for bigots or, bigot-bait, whichever you prefer.

      Black decoys will work Howard Beach, for instance, to deal with anyone manifesting racist tendencies.

      Assistant Chief John Holmes, commander of the new unit, explained it all this way:

      “We want to say to bigots: the next time you set upon somebody in the streets, he is liable to be a police officer and you are liable to be under arrest.”

      I hope Archie Bunker has heard about all this.

      But why not a bigot patrol? We tried legislation and education as a means of ending prejudice and that hasn’t worked. Perhaps a little police muscle will do the trick.

      And if the bigot patrol is successful, think of the other social misfits we could round up and haul off in a paddy wagon.

      For example, we could have an ugly patrol.

      “I’m sorry, sir, but you’ll have to come with me downtown.”

      “But what’s the charge, Officer?”

      “You’re in violation of the city’s ugly ordinance. Nobody with a big nose, ears that poke out, or, in your case, is cross-eyed, can be on the streets before dark.”

      I’d like to see a cliché patrol, too. If there’s anything I can’t stand it’s people who use clichés.

      Anybody who says, “Have a nice one,” “Hot enough for you?,” “So how’s the wife?,” or “You know” more than five times in any sentence could cool their heels in the slammer for a few days.

      I’d get people off the streets whose clothes don’t match, too.

      “Spread ‘em, Sucker,” a member of the GQ patrol might say, “that tie does not go with that jacket you’re wearing. It’s vermin like you that give civilization a bad name.”

      Maybe we could also have a jerk patrol. Think how much better life would be if we didn’t have to put up with people who do jerky, annoying things like drive forty in the passing lane, talk loudly in a movie theater, or throw their gum on the sidewalk for some innocent, law-abiding citizen to step on.

      People who sneeze as they sit on the stool next to you while you’re eating a bowl of soup in a diner, who bring large cassette players onto public conveyances and play music to have a nervous breakdown by, who play slowly on a golf course, who get into the express lane at grocery stores with more than twelve items, who don’t put their hand over their heart when the national anthem is being played, who don’t use deodorant, have a bad case of dandruff and idiotic ideas you don’t agree with.

      I don’t know why somebody didn’t think of using the police to get rid of all our social warts and blemishes before. It’s worked in other countries—so why not here?

      As Mayor Koch says, “Up against the wall, you redneck mother.”

      On Water Patrol

      They were talking about those poor souls in Wheeling, West Virginia, on the news.

      Residents are being urged to conserve water, the announcer said, and not to take baths or showers. P.U.

      There was that million-gallon diesel oil spill that got into the Ohio River and eventually oozed its way down to Wheeling, cutting off the city’s water supply.

      Most of us have never been in a shortage-of-water situation, and we figure we never will.

      Turn on the faucet, there’s water. There always has been, there always will be.

      But I have a different viewpoint.

      I grew up in a family where water conservation was a way of life. I still cringe when I see pictures of Niagara Falls. The whole thing looks to me like somebody is wasting a lot of good water.

      My family got its water from a well. I don’t know much about wells, but ours was a Corvair.

      “We’re going to have to be careful with water,” my mother must have said a million times, “the well’s low.”

      I always knew ahead of time when the well was getting low. When you turned on a faucet, a hissing, blowing, belching sound would emerge, followed by two or three drops of water of a distinct brown hue.

      Here are my family’s water-conserving rules:

      1 Never leave a faucet dripping. The penalty for failing to adhere to the first rule: My mother would yell at you, “How many times have I told you not to leave a faucet dripping? If you had lived through the Depression like I did, you would understand these things.”

      2 Use the absolute minimum amount of water for your bath. My mother, on constant water patrol, would burst unannounced into the bathroom, and if the water in our tub covered your little toe, she would launch into a lecture on gas rationing during World War II.

      3 Never flush the toilet more than once per use. My mother was so strict on this one, I still get a thrill out of staying in a hotel room where I can flush the toilet as many times as I please.

      As a matter of fact, I have more respect and appreciation for water than anybody else I know. My background obviously is the reason for this.

      Nothing makes my day like a shower with strong water pressure. A shower with a mere trickle makes me consider joining a terrorist group.

      I love a cold glass of ice water the first thing in the morning. It puts out any fires still smoldering from the night before.

      I love rinsing off my face with warm water after shaving. The skin tingles, the eyes