Road Trip - August 2014

Set out from home at 3 am Saturday headed for Birmingham and my 50^th high school reunion. I don’t like to drive in the dark, but I knew I’d still be in Texas, and therefore sorta on “home turf” by sunrise, so wasn’t all that concerned. Because I was traveling alone, I kept to my normal schedule of stopping for breaks only at welcome centers; they are patrolled and there’s someone looking out for my best interests 24 hours a day, which gives me a sense of safety (ok, well not totally, but then I’m always hyper aware of where I am and who might be around me no matter my location). Gasoline is always purchased at a known station, so that’s within my comfort zone, too.

One of the biggest problems with being on the road alone for more than 8 hours is that I tend to get bored. NOT a good thing. Plus, knowing I would be driving another 12 or more hours coming home on Sunday, again leaving pre-dawn, I prepared myself for the long haul. I keep the radio on until I run out of decent fm reception (no way Jose am I getting on the am band), and was fortunate enough to hear a 93.7 broadcast of the Pledge of Allegiance done by a children’s class. When there’s finally too much static to bear, I switch to my own music, choosing from travel kit CDs, each with at least a hundred mp3 files, all songs I enjoy hearing, or comedic skits to laugh at, old favorites to sing along with, or amusing myself by conducting my own personal private orchestra performance of Grofe, Stravinsky, Chopin, Beethoven, Strauss, Copeland, and Souza (can’t imagine what the folks in the lane next to me think of that!); it keeps me awake and involved but doesn’t divert my attention from the task of driving.

Several bottles of coffee in the cooler and a plug-in mug to keep it warm (thank you, hubby) along with half a case of water and other assorted liquid refreshments kept me hydrated, cheese crackers and yogurt raisins kept me from starving to death, and thoughts of “oh thank God it's only another 100 miles to the next rest stop” kept me sane. Hahaha!

Another thing I discovered is that with this new camera I can take pictures while I drive; just set it on the steering wheel and push the shutter button.  Got some interesting shots of sunrise in Louisiana. The low-lying eerie bayou fog topped by a rising neon sun was amazing. The bugs on the windshield not so much. Running out of washer fluid even less so. Huge thanks to the service station attendant who did NOT charge me for not only refilling it but also showed me the hood release button when I stopped for fuel. (Yes, we've had the car since December, but I rarely drive it and some things I just simply don't notice until I need to notice.)

This sign always makes me smile. And then I say a prayer for him, wherever he is, whatever he's doing, and the young men and women on active duty.

Because people worry about me when I travel, I take a picture of the current rest stop and send it as a text message to the three most involved with tracking my progress. Sometimes they respond, but they know they don’t have to, and it makes everybody feel better. Unfortunately not all the rest areas have adequate cell service within the rest room stalls, so I sometimes have to take a few extra minutes, shooting random pics while I wait for confirmation that my message was successfully sent. The drought in the US has really affected the level of the Mississippi river at Vicksburg, way down below where it should be; poor pilots had a hard time navigating the barges.

I also record verbal notes on my phone, and then play them back after I return home to remind me of things that particularly got my attention during the trip. For example: the pungent reek of freshly-riled polecat somewhere around Tyler; the merest sliver of a moon both mornings in a sky dark as a Cracker Barrel dining room at 4 am; little one-interchange-towns that waft the smell of old grease from the ubiquitous always-open truck stop; Monroe still smells like money; a bloated javelina pig, feet in the air, on the shoulder just west of Marshall; the warning sign with a blinking light above a picture of a bear (no, I’m not at all sure what it means and was not about to stay around to find out!); a long line of cars sporting National Guard license plates exiting the highway in Meridian headed for a Sunday morning drill; front bumpers severed from automobiles in what must have been ghastly accidents and then abandoned by the owners; the absolutely positively frightful condition of one I-20 welcome center contrasted with the well-appointed, nice-smelling, CLEAN beauty of another in east Texas.

And this trip something new; the signs may have been there for a while, but it’s the first time I noticed that two of the I-20 interchanges are named for local soldiers fallen in combat. Sgt. Joshua Tomlinson and Sgt. Josh Madden. God bless the government for saying yes to this tribute, for the folks who raised the money, and to all those who remember them; I thank them and their families for their ultimate sacrifice, made to keep my home (of the brave and land of the) free for me and all who travel through it.

http://www.shreveporttimes.com/article/20120703/NEWS01/120703053/Sgt-Josh-Madden-Interchange-dedicated

http://projects.militarytimes.com/valor/army-spc-joshua-a-tomlinson/4635354/

it's in the eye of the beholder

A few days ago a call came in on my landline. Now, normally I don’t answer that phone, because anyone who knows me and wants to talk to me calls my cell; and if they don’t know my cell number then 99 times out of a 100 it’s someone I don’t want to talk to.

Also, if no one picks up my landline, on the fourth ring it automatically goes to an answering machine. I listen to the message, just to see who it is. (This comes in particularly handy during election time.) Normally it’s someone I don’t wish to converse with, but if it is a “person of interest” then I pick up.

On that particular day and that particular occasion the voice that came over the speaker was that of a woman whom I went to school with and have not seen in several years. I picked up the receiver and said, “I’m here.” She immediately gushed out several sentences about how long it’s been since we last saw each other, and how much she misses me, yada yada, and then just as she began to gasp for air asked how things are going for me. 

I said, “I can’t complain.” And then purely from rote I said, “And how are you?”

She said, “Well, not so good, I’ve been sick off and on for the past few years and things are not good with the marriage, and my children don’t care anything about me…..” With each sentence the whine in her voice got louder and more pronounced and I began to regret my decision to pick up the phone. I finally interrupted her to say I had been on my way out the door and that I was late to an appointment in Cedar Hill (I did not lie, I actually HAD been on my way out the door and I really DID have an appointment) and asked if I could call her later.

She said, “Well, ok, I guess, but you promise me you’ll call.” I said I would definitely call her later and then said goodbye.

Off and on since that day I have thought about the phone call. At times I have chastised myself for not calling her back. But then immediately I find myself making excuses to myself for not calling. Examining my motives, I find that I have neither the need nor the desire to buy into what promises to be a long and involved pity party. You see, I discovered some time back that I’m what is referred to (in terms you’ll not find in the DSM 5) as a "fixer."  And I have, to my detriment, spent way too many hours listening to somebody gripe and complain about one thing or another and voice their general unhappiness with life when there’s actually nothing I can do to help that person, much less relieve their pain; and while I become the ear they need (yes, we all at times need an ear), all I really accomplish during those sessions is making myself depressed.

There are people who are on my list of facebook friends who seem to document every five minutes of their life, no matter how mundane. Still others have a penchant for “sharing” every cute little cartoon or saying about doggies or kitties or birdies or (insert the name of your least fave animal) from every Tom, Richard, and Harvey who also shares every little thing with them in what seems to be a never-ending spiral. (One friend used to forward to me everything that came into her email box; these days she has a wider audience and shares those same items with all her facebook friends. My joy is unbounded.)

Now, I’m not yet comfortable enough with actually “unfriending” someone but I did learn that I can “unfollow” them and that way I simply don’t have to bother clicking and saying I don’t want to see that particular post. Too bad all of life is not managed as easily, because no matter how you dress it up, drivel is still drivel, and I simply don’t have the time.

Items of interest, like beauty, are in the eye of the beholder. Yes, I'll call her later. But there's no telling when that "later" might be. The "fixer" in me is retired; I hung up my superhero cape quite some time ago. And I refuse to feel guilty about it. So sue me.