Being the Wild Goose

 

by Pa Rock

Road Warrior

When you see an old person driving down the road, chances are fairly good that they are heading to or from a doctor's office, pharmacy, or the grocery store.  Our lives are steeped in excitement.

Yesterday I was up and out of the house well before daylight in order to be at a medical appointment in Springfield (101 miles from my house) by 7:20 a.m.   The first part of the appointment was a "fasting" lab, which meant that I made the nearly two-hour drive without benefit of breakfast or caffeine stimulant.  But the drive was quiet, peaceful, in fact, and when I arrived I was in a good frame of mind for discussing my medical concerns with the doctor.  The drive home was also pleasant and uneventful, and provided plenty of time for thinking.

One of the things I thought about was how much I was enjoying the solitude of rolling down the road on my own.  I also thought about my annual trip to Oregon to see three of my grandchildren and how much I hate the airport experience associated with flying.   There are two primary options for going to Oregon:  flying is the quickest, cheapest and most aggravating infuriating, and driving takes far longer with numerous restaurant and motel or camping stops along the way.  (Going by bus or train are also options, but both are exceedingly complicated, expensive, and take several days.)

I have driven to Oregon three times, once from Phoenix and twice from Missouri, and enjoyed all three  of those expeditions enormously.  My last drive there was with my grandson, Boone, in 2014.  I have threatened to drive the past couple of years, but things always came up that interfered with those plans. Last summer, for instance, proved to be the summer of "stents," when much of my time was focused on keeping my tired old body repaired and functioning.

But by the time I got home yesterday I had made up my mind to drive to Oregon one more time - within the next couple of months.   I am going to do it by myself so that I can enjoy the peace and solitude and not worry about meeting other people's needs.  I'll stop where I want, stay where I want, and drive off on spur-of-the-moment detours whenever the spirit moves me.

This morning, while I was out taking Rosie on her constitutional, I heard a wild goose honking in the distance.  I looked to the skies expecting to see a ragged "vee" of geese heading north for the summer, but instead was surprised to see one lone goose flying low and heading southwest.  

"Wrong way, Corrigan,"

I shouted to the sky.

"Honk, honk,"

Came his reply.

Maybe when I leave for Oregon I will head off in the wrong direction, too, but if I stay on the road long enough I should eventually get someplace other than a doctor's office, pharmacy, or the grocery store.  It will be a nice break from my routine - which is getting very, very old.