Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Cabin weekend





So, after packing up the car and 2 dogs, we hit the road to the cabin. Make great time until…

About 45 minutes into the trip, traffic comes to a halt – road work. Now, it’s 95 degrees out, it’s 11 am on a Thursday and they’re painting and paving 70W? What the…. ? Anyway, turns out that it’s another opportunity for Gert to impart to me a life lesson.

We’re just chatting about this and that. Then she asks me:

‘Did I ever tell you the story about Dad and the road paint?’

‘Nooooooo’ was my hesitant reply. This brought on a slight giggle from her and then she started in.

Turns out that, one time, they were on the road going somewhere (details become less important as we age). There was a sign that said ‘Fresh paint, do not cross.’ Dad obeyed but, as was his wont, at some point, he wanted to get into another lane (probably to pass someone who was only doing 90)…anyway, I digress.

As the story goes, he turns to Mom and says, ‘Huh. Sign says 'Don’t cross paint' – what are they going to do to me?!’ Before Mom has time to reply, he’s across the freshly painted line and moving on his merry way, probably at warp speed (we share this trait). He appeared to be quite proud of himself as he passed the road crew and they didn’t stop him - in fact, they probably were laughing and waving in his direction. I’m sure he was pleased to have gotten one over on the ‘law.’

Mom and Dad drive a bit further before stopping. When they finally get out of the car, the entire side is coated in yellow paint. She looked at Dad and said: ‘THAT’S what they can do to you.’

As they say in West Virginia: See-me-like the moral of the story is:

Don’t worry about what ‘they’ can do to you. Worry about sabotaging yourself.

I believe this applies to all walks of life.

Mom and I rounded the evening out by sitting on the deck during the evening, hoping to watch the bats eat the moths which are attracted to a light out front of the cabin. Interestingly, bats weren’t flying but the moths were still pretty amazing to watch. Mom thought they looked like fireworks, I thought they looked like long worms. At any rate, it was a pretty spectacular show. I tried to get some pictures but these digital cameras definitely fall down in some categories – taking night pictures of moths appears to be one such category. I suppose there’s not really much of a call for this sort of thing anyway. But, here in W Virginia, it’s what we call entertainment.

1 comment:

  1. Hey - I just read this one and for those of you who wondered (because we know our dear friend can embellish...) see-me-like IS authentic West-by-God Virginian... just ask my mama...

    ReplyDelete

Please leave me comments if you enjoy, hate or have any feelings about this post. It gets sorta lonely around here...