Driving
I used to drive for hours a day. My office was 30 miles from my home, much of it over two-lane country roads teeming with school buses. The first year I had that job, I drove through Ft. Bragg but that came to a sudden and scary stop on September 11, 2001. During the day, I often traveled between schools spread out over the large rural county that employed me. I spent a lot of time listening to audiobooks and podcasts. I was once a big NPR fan, but they had a habit of playing clips of Mitch McConnell speaking and by 2008, I couldn't take his voice anymore. Finally, the Obama stimulus package from his first term kicked in and a good portion of my commute happened on multi-lane limited access roads.
I was a farm kid. I learned to drive in a 1976 Ford Ranger pickup on a hog farm in Johnston County, NC. By the time I took driver's education in high school, I could operate several kinds of tractors, including a vintage International Farmall and an even older Allis Chalmers. We had flatbed truck from the fifties named Spot and other vehicles in which we always left the keys. The actual acquisition of my state issued driver's license was delayed by my first run-in with the legal system. I got arrested for drunk driving when I was 15, BEFORE I had a license. That should have been a sign that I wasn't cut out for a relationship with Demon Rum.
In the Army I got to drive lots of things I only dreamed of as a kid. I've driven several different kinds of armored personnel carriers, an M1 tank, a Bradley fighting vehicle and the classic Army Jeep (we called the "Quarter Tons") that were replaced by HUMVEEs by the time my service ended.
The loneliest time of my life was when my first marriage split up. My ex moved from NC to PA with our two children. It was an almost 900-mile round trip that I drove on as many weekends as I could manage in a stick-shift Nissan Sentra with no radio and no AC. I couldn't afford to stop and eat along the way and I often made the drive on Friday night after working the whole day. Traveling on Interstate 95 still brings back those memories. After just a few years, the kids came to live with me and I didn't have to make that horrible lonely trip any more.
After that, the longest drive we made was when I'd take them to see their Nana, my mom, who lives at the coast. We made the trip in a variety of cheap cars over the years ranging from a $500 Chevette to Dodge Caravan I bought with a loan at 18% interest. My youngest was prone to car sickness and we would cheerfully point out to her all the spots where we had to stop for her to get sick over the years. Mom still lives in the same town today and I'm traveling the same roads to see, but Wonder Woman took over the driving a few years ago, so I have it easy now in the passenger where I might occasionally sneak a nap. Fortunately, I don't have to drive disposable cars any more either.
When I go visit my dad, who lives in the next county, I will sometimes accompany him when he takes my step-mother for her daily ride. She has severe memory issues and only gets pleasure from a few things anymore. One of them is riding slowly through the farm country and watching the cycle of the crops grown in our area: cotton, tobacco. corn, soybeans and grain. Occasionally someone will get a wild hair and plant sweet potatoes or peanuts or best of all, a huge field of sunflowers. She announces that it's time for her ride, by picking up her purse and standing in front of Dad, who always just gets his keys and heads with her towards their car. If I'm there, I climb in the back seat and go along.
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