Parking

In preparation for my trip home this Christmas, The Beast has already drafted a spectacularly long list of proposed activities.

Many of these things on this list are trips to see assorted family members—but a handful of them take place in downtown Seattle.

For some, an evening in the Emerald City sounds like a lot of fun, but to me it just sounds like a lot of walking.

To fully grasp this sentiment, it helps to understand one of Hal’s most passionately held beliefs.

“Those big parking garages,” he has often explained, “are monuments to the weakness and laziness of mere men.”

This belief was extended, of course, to pay-by-the-hour parking lots or any designated park-and-ride area. Putting coins in a street-side meter was even farther outside the realm of possibility.

When it came to finding a temporary place to rest our car, Hal saw a grand game afoot—and he was a player, not the played.

Hal’s reasoning, by his estimation, was simple: He had paid for the car, his taxes had paid for the roads, and he had paid (after finding a steep discount) for whichever event he was attending – no force on earth, hell or hereafter was going to get him to pay for parking once he got there.

This is where all the walking came in.

Since the areas surrounding a major attraction recognize that an influx of people will need a place to stow their automobile, and will be willing to pay for said luxury, it makes sense that every available space will have a pricetag attached to it.

In concentric circles, the prices become much cheaper the farther away they are from the attraction. Eventually those prices drop to zero.

Hal patrolled those outer valences with the intensity and veracity of an ancient predator.

On countless occasions, our trip to the city for Mariners games, ferry rides, festivals and concerts was preceded by an elaborately—comically, even—long walk from the parking spot Hal had so proudly claimed as his own.

Whereas Safeco Field might have been our destination, Hal could not have been more pleased with the spot he’d found on the southern fringes of Portland.

Jake and I, out of a sense of obligation, provided the requisite amount of complaining, but this availed us nothing. Hal, instead, would speak at great length about how his parking spot was free, and that parking several miles closer wouldn’t make any difference.

Over the last 54 years, Hal has avoided paying 65 cents for parking on dozens of occasions. If all goes well, by his 70th birthday he will have saved nearly $40.