Life on the road can be adventurous
October 2024
by Margo Oxendine, Contributing Columnist
Many blessed drivers have ferried me to Charlottesville and back these past eight months. God bless every one of them! The idea of having to drive 100 miles there, on a busy interstate, have tests and appointments, and then turn around and brave the 100 miles back home is honestly just too much for me.
But, shoot — I remember driving to Virginia Beach in one day when I was younger. Sometimes, I’d take two days, stopping to stay with friends in Richmond before taking to the highway to make it to the beach the next day. Then at some point, it seems, I stopped going altogether.
Nowadays, the idea of a small cabin in the middle of the woods, maybe by a lake, seems much more my speed. Then again, I have a nice house in the middle of the mountains, across from a golf course, with a screened porch. What more do I really need?
But I digress, back to the drivers who brought me to and then home from Charlottesville.
We had as much fun as possible on those trips — chatting, sit-dancing to Barry White and the Bee Gees on the radio, laughing and enjoying ourselves.
Stepping out of the car at the hospital’s front entrance threw me for a loop one day. I went to grab my purse (along with a bag and pillow, of course), and it wasn’t there. I’d forgotten my purse, of all things! It was sitting home in its chair. On that trip, I found out that the last place one needs a purse is at the hospital. So, lucky me? I guess so.
On my most recent — and hopefully last — trip for a while, a man who’s become a pretty good friend drove me there for the second time. It was chat, chat, chat all the way. He even said he’d take me to my favorite restaurant when I was done. Hurray! When I was done, I called my friend to tell him I’d be waiting in front of the hospital.
“My car blew up!” he announced. This was the same car that he had just paid $1,600 to have fixed the day before. How could it blow up? We may never know.
He found a kind stranger to come pick me up at the hospital while he waited for the tow truck at a gas station. Is there food there? I wondered. “Yes,” he said.
So my fabulous lunch came down to a gas station hot dog twirling on a grill, and a bag of Fritos. Not exactly what I’d been pining for, but still, something to eat. We waited two hours for the tow truck. I figured that when it arrived, I’d ride in the back seat, and keep my mouth shut.
But when the behemoth truck showed up, it only had one bench seat in front. I was squeezed between two big men, with toolboxes and oily rags all around us. And we had 100 miles to go. Not to mention, I was still hungry. And the truck was very loud. I hoped we wouldn’t need another tow truck for this tow truck.
I’m glad the driver was a speedy fellow. I guess no police are anxious to try to pull over a huge tow truck with an extended trailer and another car tacked onto the back. We made it home in record time, even if it was uncomfortable as all get-out. The driver even backed the behemoth up my scary driveway; there was nowhere else to turn that thing around.
My legs were all cramped up when I finally fumbled down from the tall tow truck. But, I did manage to limp into my quiet home, onto my porch, and gobble my usual lunch: chicken salad and cottage cheese. It was a celebratory lunch, as I don’t have to return to Charlottesville for another year!
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