Sunday, April 29, 2001
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Sunday, April 29, 2001 |
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A drive in the country By MARY JANE
HOLT
Daniel, my husband, buys a new truck every five to nine years. When he sells a truck just prior to buying a new one he always has guys in line to buy it. His used trucks look almost like new inside. Even the last Ford 150 he sold in 1998 before buying his first 250 was super clean and he'd driven it for nine years! Not only does he keep the interior spotless, his trucks get regular maintenance. He is quite impressive in the way he cares for machinery of any kind. Actually, he's pretty impressive in lots of areas. Like in the way he always is so agreeable when I just want to ride. He likes to ride, too. It didn't take us long to learn all the roads within a 12 to 15 mile radius of our home after we moved to Meriwether County three years ago. I am especially drawn to back roads where tree branches try to reach out across the road and embrace one another to form a romantic canopy for folks like us. Not that I ever need an excuse to try a new road but I love it when somebody tells me they are looking to buy a house or land in certain area. I immediately want to look for it for them. And not among the want ads. Not hardly. I want to ride the roads. It's the only way to do justice to such a search! As luck would have it, some friends of ours are looking for land in Meriwether or Pike. So recently, as we were driving through Molena, I saw this little sign, "House for sale." Turn around, there was a sign! He knew what kind of sign I was referring to. I'm sure he even had a general idea who I had in mind when I saw the sign and why I thought we should check it out. Not that we always have to have a reason. But I'm really glad I had good reason on this particular day. You see, it had been raining. A lot. For days. So what? It never occurred to me that the weather should have any impact our riding adventures. Also, for days, weeks, maybe even months I have been half-heartedly listening to Daniel mull over endless details about all the tires he had been looking at to replace the "street tires" that came on his 250 Diesel. He has been trying to push his present Firestones (yep, awesome Firestones!) to 60,000 miles. He likes round numbers. The tread still looks good to me. He says they are starting to show wear, though, and has been incessantly discussing tire treads. Who cares about tire tread? All terrain tire tread, at that. Me? I figure a tire is a tire is a tire, right? Wrong. We proceeded down the road. A little pavement. A little gravel. A little dirt. Then suddenly the clay. The wet clay. On a hill. In a curve. Very wet clay. Talk about your life instantly flashing before your eyes. Actually it was several lifetimes, or maybe it was just my marriage... But there was nothing instant about what happened. Slowly, very slowly, that big beautiful bright amber hunk of metal began to slide ever so gently across the road and down into the ditch on our left. Uh huh, alllllll the way across the road. Until it decided all on its own, with no input from its driver, that enough was enough which thankfully was a few inches from the bank that would have muddied up Daniel's door really bad! Me? I'm just having an adventure. Shucks, I know, as soon as the sliding stops, that big old 4X4 will just pull us right back up on the road. Shows how smart I am. You see, I was learning about tread, and the value of a cell phone. As he stood there looking helpless while we waited for Rusty with his new, impressive, absolutely awesome all terrain tires to come to the rescue, I was almost speechless. In 32 years of marriage I don't recall seeing that look before. The pain was only compounded, I'm sure, by the knowledge that a Dodge was about to rescue his Ford. You would think a smart woman like me would know to keep quiet in such a setting. Not very bright on that particular Sunday afternoon, I quipped, "Bet you wish you could cut out mine and Rusty's tongues before news of this gets spread around." "Then what would I do about your fingers?" he asked glumly.
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