This summer I’ve driven well over a thousand miles across the southern states of America. I’m thankful for good air-conditioning, good music, good company (my family), and Chick-Fil-A. I like driving, which certainly helps, even if I have to think hard to get in the car on the side that has the steering wheel, after living in Ireland so long. We’ve been down highways through forests that seem to never end and we’ve been down country roads through corn and cotton and tobacco fields that grow outside of small towns where people sell fresh peaches and watermelons from roadside stands. Every few minutes there’s another white steeple on another red-brick church. One of them was just letting out from some kind of event, and the people were leaving with take-away boxes of food which was probably fried chicken and green beans and devilled eggs or some excellent kind of pie. I would have liked to pull in but it would have been strange for us to arrive at the end as total strangers. I don’t even know what town we were in, because I don’t have to keep track of that kind of information anymore thanks to the sat-nav. I just follow the blue line, keep an eye on how much fuel I have, and enjoy the view. Eventually, we get where we’re going.
Continue reading A Thousand Miles, And A Poem