On The Road Again
Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to Louisville, Kentucky: 760 miles.
I used to drive it in a day.
Three hours to Jackson, Mississippi.
Three hours to Memphis, Tennessee.
Fill the tank.
Then three hours to Nashville.
And those last, long three hours to Louisville.
A man will do any crazy fool thing for love.
What brought me to Baton Rouge, you might ask?
My students. Whom I taught for a few years back in the 1980s.
They were the ones who recommended this little number.
To keep me awake during the drive to Louisville.
I am planning to visit them later this year for a reunion.
(Look out, Connie, Melisse, Erika, Meredith, Julia and Susannah!)
One plan for 2021? Fly to New Orleans, rent a car, and drive across the Deep South.
Baton Rouge. Mississippi. Alabama.
Then visit Linda and Greg in Florida.
(Here, kitty, kitty!)
They have a great place. On a little lake.
As you can see, word has gotten out about my brother-in-law’s well-stocked saloon.
There is one slight technical difficulty, however.
I let my last driver’s license (in the state of Vermont) expire.
Because I knew I would never need a car in London.
So I contacted the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles last week to see if I could renew the first license I ever had.
They said no. So I need to apply for a Learner’s Permit.
This could take a while.
The irony is, of course, that in the past 20 years I have visited almost all of the world’s time zones.
And never drove once.
Even though I have seen much of the world, I am still ignorant of my own country.
I have only been west of the Rockies once.
And there is so much left to explore.
This is one big reason why I decided to come home in 2020.
I am looking forward to heading south.
And seeing friends and family that I have not seen for a while.
Renewing old acquaintances.
And making a few new ones.
Then I really need to head out west.
To finally see America.
Hey, if life isn’t an adventure.
Why are you even getting up?