Editorial
Front Page - Friday, August 20, 2010
I Swear ...
Demystifying some mysteries
Vic Fleming
I have viewer mail from WB, who, on reading the “Did she really say that?” column a few weeks ago, politely takes issue with the notion that Atlanta is an easy one-day drive from Little Rock.
I can see his point.
Atlanta is over 500 miles away, and it takes about nine hours to drive there, if you’re easy on yourself. But, on this larger journey, on four other days, I drove well over 500 miles.
Leaving Little Rock at dawn, I was able to easily reach Atlanta way before dark.
It was almost dark when I reached Williamsburg Monday and well after dark when I reached Southbridge, Mass.,, on Tuesday.
“Reading your route,” WB writes, “I decided that you had plans to run for some Rotary International Office, and were on a whirlwind trip to solidify and increase your votes in the towns and states you mentioned.”
Tehee!
Nice guess.
No cigar.
Not even close.
The route itself does make for interesting reading, though.
I left Little Rock on Sunday and picked Susan up at Logan Airport in Boston on Wednesday night. I was in Atlanta Sunday night, Williamsburg Monday night and Southbridge Tuesday night.
Susan and I went to Vermont, staying in Bennington Wednesday night and Jamaica Thursday night.
Since her plane got into Logan at 7:30 p.m., we were nearly midnight getting to Bennington.
From Jamaica, we cruised over to upstate New York, where we stayed a couple of nights at the Red Hook Inn (see column of Aug. 6).
From there it was on to Boston, with the “not-so-newlyweds” (a phrase that mystified WB).
The not-so-newlyweds are my daughter and son-in-law, whose knot was tied in October four years back. The descriptive phrase is to distinguish them from my son and daughter-in-law, who tied the knot June 19 (see columns of June 28 and July 2). They are the newlyweds.
I left Boston in the car Tuesday, Aug. 3, before dawn, and drove to Columbus, OH, where I spent the night.
I left Columbus at dawn on Wednesday and picked up Susan at the Little Rock Airport 14 hours later.
I spoke to two Rotary Clubs. My presentation: “Life’s a Puzzle, Let’s Fill in the Blanks.”
Not running for anything, but have speech, will give.
WB continues: “The fact that you were scheduled into Rhinebeck, NY, on Saturday, 31 July, I put down to bad planning by your Election Committee ... how could you have known all the hotels and motels would be booked? “I’m sure you found some other accommodations.”
The Aug. 6 column may have shed some light on that point.
And now, I am about to hit the road again. Ironically, to the city that prompts the statement that Atlanta is an easy one-day drive.
(Even more ironically, some might argue, by the time you read this column, I will have been back in town for a week.)
The city referred to above is Charlotte, which is not an easy one-day drive from the Rock.
So, we are flying there. For a short weekend with the newlyweds.
I appreciated WB’s letter, which came the old fashioned way. In the mail.
And which seems to have fueled an entire column. That’s always nice.
Especially when such a letter arrives well before the deadline for a column.
Next week: “Pleasantville visited.” Probably the last of my vacation columns.
Vic Fleming is a district court judge in Little Rock, Arkansas, where he also teaches at the William H. Bowen School of Law. Contact him at vicfleming@att.net.
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