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<\/center><\/p>\nA period of time can move quickly. A period of time can move slowly. This weekend was more of the former. I had about 84 hours on the ground on this trip, a strict limit I impose so that no one gets too weary of my antics. Here’s one last photograph from my Alabama sojourn. <\/p>\n
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<\/center><\/p>\nI touched on this on Friday, but the water has defined and developed and dictated terms in that little corner of the world. And, right there below that sunset and at the bottom of that hill is a bit of that water, a tributary of the river that does all of those things. That particular part itself being full of mystery, awe and normalcy. <\/p>\n
I’ve never lived on the water, so my levels of appreciation about it are all over the place. But if I sit here and write about this for too long it could become a classic Southern Gothic tale. (Right through here passed the Trail of Tears, after all. In fact, I’ve spent much of my life going back and forth across one segment of that route, for goodness sake.) So we won’t dwell, for now. <\/p>\n
This morning, after a bit of work I watched my flight get delayed … hours in advance … we sat around a while. And then we moseyed our way to drive toward the airport. Mentally saying “until next time” to these familiar, old, family haunts, while counting the unimpressive amount of yard signs for the upcoming midterm elections. (There are not a lot. None for the Republican running for governor. One for his opponent. And, in deep red Alabama, in three-plus days of traveling the highways and byways of two counties, I saw exactly one sign that bragged of a presidential endorsement. Even in Alabama there is no juice left in those coattails, mixaphorically speaking.)<\/p>\n
We stopped outside of Nashville and had one of those time warp lunches. When we sat down we figured we could walk around a few shops to kill a few more minutes. Before I knew it I was calculating the remaining travel time and demanding the check. Then we got diverted and — I don’t know if you know this — Nashville will demonstrate to you 24.7 why the people in east and west Tennessee hate middle Tennessee. There just aren’t enough “bless your heart” sayings go around. And, sure, word has gotten out about “bless your heart,” but we have other, deeper, more profound, more biting ways to insult people in the South. Not all of them have made it to the national discourse yet. Most of them were inspired by Nashville. <\/p>\n
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<\/center><\/p>\nAnyway, made it to the airport just in time. Breezed through security like a rock star. Got down to the gate … and waited. Also, we waited. Got on the plane and we waited. <\/p>\n
I don’t know how it is that the third-largest airline in the world is so bad at the basic demands of the job, but it really makes you want to avoid the fourth and fifth carrier. <\/p>\n
Give them this: I asked for a tomato juice (because I read one of those pieces that says this is the drink that signals to the flight crew that you know the score, something about altitude, cabin pressure, and salt content) and they were suddenly, “Yes sir. Absolutely, sir. Another can of our hand-crushed tomato juice, sir?”<\/p>\n
They did not. Also, it tasted like tomato juice, just like the last time I had it on a plane. Or the last time I had it sitting on terra firma. It’s enough to make me wonder whether I can believe everything I see on the web.<\/p>\n
The flight was fine. Got in about two hours later than I should have. Read my way through all of it. Left the plane, managed to escape the airport, mostly by ignoring signs, following the crowd, and a vague sense of muscle memory. Happily reunited with my lovely bride, who made the sacrifice of waiting on me for dinner. We ate dinner. Now I’m working on class stuff for tomorrow. <\/p>\n
There’s a lot to get through this week. Let’s get through it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A period of time can move quickly. A period of time can move slowly. This weekend was more of the former. I had about 84 hours on the ground on this trip, a strict limit I impose so that no one gets too weary of my antics. Here’s one last photograph from my Alabama sojourn. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,38,3,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-573899385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventures","category-family","category-monday","category-photo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573899385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573899385"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573899385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":573899387,"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573899385\/revisions\/573899387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573899385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573899385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573899385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}