Getting There - #42

Morning Friend,

There's nothing quite like the warm and fuzzy feeling of encountering old friends while out for drive on the highway, especially if they're the same idiots whose incompetence at 50 kilometers an hour in the city is so dangerously enhanced by the perilous variables of greater speed and slightly trickier circumstances.

Ahh yess....that's Him! I'd recognize that slackened jaw, the pointed; almost "pin-like" head and those maniacal "HEEERRE'S JOHNNNY" - Jack in The Shining - eyes anywhere !

How comforting it is to know that statistically, for every 1% increase in road speed, there is a corresponding 3% increase in accident likeliness.

Hmmm, that's strange....I'm doing 102, ( thanks to my trusty cruise control), and he seems to be bearing up behind me pretty quickly?

That kooky nutty guy!....Not in a hurry AGAIN is he?

One would think that on a rainy Saturday morning with the wind howling and the roads slick as a duck's back, that you wouldn't see too many folks "high-balling" down a two-lane highway unless they were;

A- Law Enforcement

B- E.M.T.'s

C- Drunks

D- Fools

E- combination of A/B

F- combination of C/D

G-Grandma going to bingo

F- late for his/her wedding

My old friend who now appears to be wanting to pass me, is most certainly a "D" which poses any number of reasons why he is choosing to place his life, mine, and any number of innocents' in jeopardy.

The first, which I cannot discount, is the fact that he may well just be plain old stupid; a garden variety idiot.

I mean, "passing" on the highway in ideal conditions is a skillful maneuver requiring a more than of modicum of intellect and a good measure of common sense.

To attempt to do so during a rainstorm with fairly heavy "Cottage Country" traffic on a highway interspersed with several stretches of on-going construction is the province of only the dimmest of wit, and/or drunks.

I'll give my friend the benefit of the doubt and suggest that given the early hour of the day he is not drunk. ( or perhaps not yet anyway?)

And I'll go a step further and suggest that he is not, a narrow-minded simpleton with no regard for human life, his own included.

A good number of otherwise relatively sound-minded individuals spend however many years of highway driving (their luck and providence allows), believing that somehow every car passed on the highway is another key to the mystical time/space continuum propelling them like anti-matter forward into a realm of existence far into the future.

It's believed that if you "bend" the speed limit enough you can fool Father Time. ( if you can avoid Father R.C.)

I would suggest that this fellow honestly believes that what awaits him at the end of an hour-long journey, is going to be magically better if he can get there in 56 minutes.

Every heart-pounding, white knuckled hair-raising time he just misses piling head-long into a grain truck or a family of four in an SUV, he is shaving valuable seconds off of his accursed "speed limited" journey.

There are "things" going on "there" that he's missing out on; against which the pleasing summer sights of lush greenery, rolling farmland and ever-growing crowds of welcoming timber cannot compete.

There is certainly nothing offered by his satellite radio, CD player or the pleasant company of his companions that can come close to the 4 minutes of unbridled delight, immeasurable richness, and ecstatic fulfillment that a few close calls can garner, so long as those minutes are spent "there".

As my deluded friend, now a full and precious 2 seconds past me, pulls in just in the nick of time, the horn of the van he just missed blares as it whizzes by and I needn't be too imaginative to discern the nature of the van driver's none-too-polite exclamations of surprise and exhortations of good-will.

I on the other hand, steeped in Serenity as I am of late, am just happy to see the poor fool's taillights and simply pray, for either his car to break down....or a single, vehicle accident with one, fatality.

I know that's a bit harsh my friend, but the unfairness of life being what it is, these Ultra-Maroons end up taking innocent lives with them and if there's a more appropriate use of the word "needlessly" than I'm not familiar with it.

Life is a journey of journeys...trips between adventures....a voyage of living.

The ride between here and there is the perfect opportunity for orientation, introspection, and contemplation.

What's the point of racing from here to there if you die along the way?

Accident rates rise exponentially with speed, so if everyone sped, no-one would get anywhere.

Half the fun is getting there, the other half is getting there alive...slow down and enjoy it!

We pass through God's lovely garden but once and to not savor its' essence, cherish its' beauty, seize and embrace it with slow and exquisite passion is shameful, and in some cases, dangerous.

If you're late for your wedding, it's both.

For you, ( and Grandma) they'll clear the highway.

Love tImMy:/

Laugh as much as you breathe...

Love as long as you live ( between the ditches)