Dinner in the Field and other stories
I find you can discover your strengths at any age. For example, I find I’m a better writer than I am an editor. I have a full-length draft of a memoir that I’ve devoted countless hours to, and it’s finally finished. I’m anxious to move on to new material. But finishing the book is not the same as completing the project. Doing it right, I’m told, entails a less than...
A New Broom Sweeps Clean
I think about the future more and more. I try to predict what life, both my own and the lives of those close to me, will be like in the years ahead. Private and unspoken, I base predictions on what is happening now, politics and government, technology, how we interact with each other, the world around us. I get my information from books, the papers on the driveway, the news...
Care, Resist, Vote
Do you know when children are taken from the care and custody of their parents in the United States? When they are sexually abused and the offender is still in the home. When they are physically abused and a professional believes no adult can or will protect them. When children are abandoned. When children are so neglected their health or their very life is threatened. When children are removed from...
End of the Road
I find the last day of a solo road trip a little sad. I knew the following day and from then on I would be in the company of friends and family, which is far from a bad thing, but that feeling of traveling alone, being one with your thoughts, free to do whatever you chose without compromise, is gone until the next time. I assume there will always be...
A Night in Natchez
I knew nothing about Natchez. I went there on the recommendation of a good guy I’ve gotten to know from Louisiana. Hearing I was roughly following the Mississippi down to Florida, he said if I was anywhere near Natchez it was worth seeing. So I went. From Bostrop I drove toward Sterlington and headed the direction of Monroe. In Columbia I turned on 4 East following it through Gilbert, Jigger,...
Lunch in Louisiana
Soon after I crossed the Louisiana state line, traveling south on Route 425, I stopped In Bostrop for an oyster po’boy sandwich. I’d been imagining that sandwich for quite a while. Sam’s Southern Eatery looked to be the ideal place. Old. Their sign could have dated back to the 60’s. I realized Sam might be long gone, but there were lots of cars in the parking lot. When I...
Leaving Arkansas in Sunshine
It’s amazing what a short whiskey and an hour and a half nap on a good bed can do to improve your mood. I woke up hungry in another strange motel room. It was dark and still raining hard. I ventured down to the lobby. I asked the night clerk, the very cheerful woman who rented me a room, if there was a rib joint close and she suggested one...
Road Trip Re-routed.
There’s not much Kentucky between Cairo and Tennessee. Before I knew it I was crossing the state line on Route 51 into South Fulton and heading down Route 43 to Greenfield, Tennessee. Route 43 was still a little well traveled for my taste. I was looking for America’s backcountry. At Greenfield I turned off on Route 54 and headed toward Trenton on my way to Humboldt. The towns thinned out...
I made it to Cairo, but it was nothing like Egypt
When I woke up in Cape Girardeau Missouri not only was it still raining, it was foggy. When I opened the hotel blinds I couldn’t see my Buick across the parking lot. I hadn’t slept well. I kept waking up wondering where I was and what I was doing. Seems like I used to adapt more quickly. I stayed in a Drury’s Motel, which in addition to offering free breakfasts...
Ferris Wheels and Accredited Professionals
The Ferris Wheel/Jacksonville story, the one the woman in Worrell Land Services wanted to tell me when I was lost on the road trip, can be long or short. I’m going with short. It’s interesting for a while, but once you get the idea it’s not. In 1893 W.E. Sullivan, owner of the Eli Bridge company in Roodhouse (a railroad town down the road from Jacksonville) went to the Columbian...
Road Trip-Leaving Illinois
(from previous post) I had breakfast at the counter and brought in the Atlas in to peruse. By the looks of it all the other diners were having the buffet. I knew what I wanted before I sat down. Fried mush with eggs. As I waited for my order to come up I opened the road atlas to Illinois and looked at where I might go next. The Dixie was...