.
“Inveniemus viam aut viam faciemus.”
That Latin tag, which translates as “We will find a way or we will make a way,” is one of my favorites. Often it stands me in good stead as worthy counsel.
Today, however, I didn’t find a way, so tomorrow I am hoping to make a way.
My dad and his wife live in Gainesville, Florida. Too much time had passed since our last visit, so I promised them I would arrive at their house in the late afternoon on Monday, December 28, which is today, and would leave on January 1.
Interstate 95, my selected route, has a wicked reputation. On holidays this “expressway” can become a driver’s nightmare, a hellhole of accidents and stalled traffic.
“Inveniemus viam aut viam faciemus.”
That Latin tag, which translates as “We will find a way or we will make a way,” is one of my favorites. Often it stands me in good stead as worthy counsel.
Today, however, I didn’t find a way, so tomorrow I am hoping to make a way.
My dad and his wife live in Gainesville, Florida. Too much time had passed since our last visit, so I promised them I would arrive at their house in the late afternoon on Monday, December 28, which is today, and would leave on January 1.
Interstate 95, my selected route, has a wicked reputation. On holidays this “expressway” can become a driver’s nightmare, a hellhole of accidents and stalled traffic.
Carefully I thought through my plans. By Monday, I reasoned, the Christmas traffic would be gone, and on New Year’s Day the majority of my fellow citizens would be watching television or shopping for holiday bargains at the mall.
Now, I have never seen the movie “The March of the Penguins,” and where the Penguins were marching remains a mystery to me. But today I have witnessed a phenomenon just as stunning: the March of the Old Ones.
Let me tell you about the Old Ones.
I intended to leave Asheville by 7:30, a time that would put me in Columbia right after the rush hour and would get me through North Jacksonville and on my way to Gainesville before the evening rush hour. Sounds good, yes?
But when I woke this morning, my left ear betrayed me. It ached—not much, but just enough to make me leery of leaving town without treatment. So I called my family doctor, a noble man who on learning of my circumstances agreed to see me at once. He looked inside my ear, prodded my chest, examined my throat, and prescribed a four-day dose of Azithromycin.
After leaving his office, I drove to the Ingles Pharmacy on Merrimon Avenue to receive the prescription. After a fifteen-minute delay—I used the time to buy some treats for my dad and his wife—the pharmacy opened. The pharmacist took another fifteen minutes to put together the packet of pills.
Now it was 9:30 and raining hard in the bargain.
Still, I left Asheville with high hopes of a good day’s drive.
No go. No way. No such luck.
From Columbia, South Carolina, to the intersection where I-26 meets I-95, the traffic began piling up. Driving the last five miles to this intersection took about half an hour.
And that’s when the real fun began. The back-up on I-95 first baffled me, then annoyed me, and then amused me—I love to see a driver tailgating the guy ahead of him, swaying his car back and forth, as if he is somehow going to magically pass the two hundred cars ahead.
But finally the drive just wore me out.
After six hours on the road of what is typically an eight-hour trip, I was still in South Carolina, averaging about twenty-five miles per hour. At Exit 33, I made a decision. I pulled off the road, found a motel, a Red Roof Inn, and rented a room.
Had I stayed on the road, I would have arrived at my Dad’s house around ten that night. He would be asleep, and the dog would bark at my entry and wake half the neighborhood. Besides, if I kept plodding along in that pile of traffic, my arms and legs might never again be the same. (I drive a stick shift).
After renting the room, I bought a foot-long chicken and bacon ranch sub from a nearby Subway. I have never eaten a foot-long sub, but I was famished—I hadn’t eaten all day—and that wonderful collection of nine-grain bread, chicken, bacon, tomatoes, lettuce, pickles, and cheese will be long remembered as worthy of five stars. Afterwards, I napped a few minutes at the desk in my room, then graded six Advanced Placement Composition journals, answered some emails, took a hike around the broad parking lot, and am now writing here.
From pain there often comes discovery. Here was my major discovery of the day.
In the week after Christmas, old people from the North pack up their vans and their trailers, and invade the South. These Old Ones come from places like Rochester, and Boston, and Harrisburg. Like the Union army under Lincoln that also invaded the South, the eyes of the Old Ones “have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord,” but their lord’s name is Florida. And unlike their predecessors, they aren’t out to capture Richmond, Vicksburg, or Atlanta. No, they are after Naples, Orlando, and Miami.
At Exit 33, my stopping place, the Old Ones are ubiquitous. I saw them in Denny’s, where I first stopped to eat before I spotted Subway. They formed their cars up in lines at the Exxon beside the hotel. They drifted through the hotel lobby at five in the afternoon, looking for free coffee. They walked up and down the hallway. Two or three gathered in the parking lot to talk and smoke cigarettes. They fussed with the cargo racks at the rear of their vans. Into their rooms they carried dogs, coolers of food and drink, and luggage held together by tape and twine.
Tomorrow I must evade the Old Ones and their traffic jams.
Here is my plan. My telephone will wake me at 4 a.m. By 4:30, still dripping from my shower, I will hit the road. Sleep has regrettably never befriended me, so this is no great sacrifice.
There remains one possible glitch. Shortly before 9:00, I reconnoitered the hotel. The corridors were as silent as a morgue at midnight. A walk through the parking lot revealed window after darkened window.
What if the Old Ones were already sleeping? What if they intended, as do I, an early morning get-away?
This thought rattled me until I remember the hotel’s free breakfast bar. Unlike me, most of the Old Ones are congenitally unable to give up a free breakfast bar. The free coffee, the sweet rolls, the fruit they can stuff into their purses and pants: most of them would never give up these delights.
That breakfast bar doesn’t open until 7. By then I hope to be in Jacksonville.
Now, I have never seen the movie “The March of the Penguins,” and where the Penguins were marching remains a mystery to me. But today I have witnessed a phenomenon just as stunning: the March of the Old Ones.
Let me tell you about the Old Ones.
I intended to leave Asheville by 7:30, a time that would put me in Columbia right after the rush hour and would get me through North Jacksonville and on my way to Gainesville before the evening rush hour. Sounds good, yes?
But when I woke this morning, my left ear betrayed me. It ached—not much, but just enough to make me leery of leaving town without treatment. So I called my family doctor, a noble man who on learning of my circumstances agreed to see me at once. He looked inside my ear, prodded my chest, examined my throat, and prescribed a four-day dose of Azithromycin.
After leaving his office, I drove to the Ingles Pharmacy on Merrimon Avenue to receive the prescription. After a fifteen-minute delay—I used the time to buy some treats for my dad and his wife—the pharmacy opened. The pharmacist took another fifteen minutes to put together the packet of pills.
Now it was 9:30 and raining hard in the bargain.
Still, I left Asheville with high hopes of a good day’s drive.
No go. No way. No such luck.
From Columbia, South Carolina, to the intersection where I-26 meets I-95, the traffic began piling up. Driving the last five miles to this intersection took about half an hour.
And that’s when the real fun began. The back-up on I-95 first baffled me, then annoyed me, and then amused me—I love to see a driver tailgating the guy ahead of him, swaying his car back and forth, as if he is somehow going to magically pass the two hundred cars ahead.
But finally the drive just wore me out.
After six hours on the road of what is typically an eight-hour trip, I was still in South Carolina, averaging about twenty-five miles per hour. At Exit 33, I made a decision. I pulled off the road, found a motel, a Red Roof Inn, and rented a room.
Had I stayed on the road, I would have arrived at my Dad’s house around ten that night. He would be asleep, and the dog would bark at my entry and wake half the neighborhood. Besides, if I kept plodding along in that pile of traffic, my arms and legs might never again be the same. (I drive a stick shift).
After renting the room, I bought a foot-long chicken and bacon ranch sub from a nearby Subway. I have never eaten a foot-long sub, but I was famished—I hadn’t eaten all day—and that wonderful collection of nine-grain bread, chicken, bacon, tomatoes, lettuce, pickles, and cheese will be long remembered as worthy of five stars. Afterwards, I napped a few minutes at the desk in my room, then graded six Advanced Placement Composition journals, answered some emails, took a hike around the broad parking lot, and am now writing here.
From pain there often comes discovery. Here was my major discovery of the day.
In the week after Christmas, old people from the North pack up their vans and their trailers, and invade the South. These Old Ones come from places like Rochester, and Boston, and Harrisburg. Like the Union army under Lincoln that also invaded the South, the eyes of the Old Ones “have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord,” but their lord’s name is Florida. And unlike their predecessors, they aren’t out to capture Richmond, Vicksburg, or Atlanta. No, they are after Naples, Orlando, and Miami.
At Exit 33, my stopping place, the Old Ones are ubiquitous. I saw them in Denny’s, where I first stopped to eat before I spotted Subway. They formed their cars up in lines at the Exxon beside the hotel. They drifted through the hotel lobby at five in the afternoon, looking for free coffee. They walked up and down the hallway. Two or three gathered in the parking lot to talk and smoke cigarettes. They fussed with the cargo racks at the rear of their vans. Into their rooms they carried dogs, coolers of food and drink, and luggage held together by tape and twine.
Tomorrow I must evade the Old Ones and their traffic jams.
Here is my plan. My telephone will wake me at 4 a.m. By 4:30, still dripping from my shower, I will hit the road. Sleep has regrettably never befriended me, so this is no great sacrifice.
There remains one possible glitch. Shortly before 9:00, I reconnoitered the hotel. The corridors were as silent as a morgue at midnight. A walk through the parking lot revealed window after darkened window.
What if the Old Ones were already sleeping? What if they intended, as do I, an early morning get-away?
This thought rattled me until I remember the hotel’s free breakfast bar. Unlike me, most of the Old Ones are congenitally unable to give up a free breakfast bar. The free coffee, the sweet rolls, the fruit they can stuff into their purses and pants: most of them would never give up these delights.
That breakfast bar doesn’t open until 7. By then I hope to be in Jacksonville.