Chad's spot for various thoughts, musings, poetry, ideas and whatnot

Wednesday, December 24, 2003

Getting out of Town

It's that time of year where many people try to go from one place to another so as to see people they may really only want to see once a year or to see people they'd like to see more often than that but are too far away. In our case, it is a bit of both as we are presently in the land of Jenny and Forrest and Elephants and red clay and cotton and, most of all, Boll Weivel shines (talk about a blog for another time...whew!). I was amazed at the actual amount of time it took us to leave our driveway to leaving our town. Much of this, I believe, was due to the fact that Tuesday seems to have been "get out and drive really slow" day for the residents of our small Georgia town. I'm serious. Really. I'm just frustrated that no one told me so I could participate too. Everywhere we went we ended up behind a car that drove 10 mph under the speed limit and couldn't use their auto's mechanical signals to clearly indicate what it was they planned to do as drivers, assuming that they actually knew. So, what should have been a couple of quick on the way out of town errands turned into a comical escapade that took nearly an hour.

Still, I am glad to get away from being near the big city for the middle of the week. I don't know if the bad guys are planning to attack America on one of Christianity's high holy days but I don't want to be anywhere near Atlanta if they do. BY the way, if there are those who wonder what the Muslim extremists think of the US religiously, an attack on or near Christmas will go a long way to clearing that up. My hope is that even the extremists will understand that certain things are just beyond the pale but I don't expect that to happen. These guys follow from the same philosophical tradition of people who scream when the US has soldiers in Saudi Arabia during Ramadan but attacks Israel on Yom Kippur hoping to catch the Jewish people by surprise. Granted these things happened years apart but the leaders of the extremists were alive for both instances.

Anyway, my little digression aside, we've arrived here in the Sawgrass safely and are trying to relax and see everyone, including those we really aren't too excited about. The question I always ask is why does it have to be so hard sometimes? If the the most important goal is to have the "whole family" together (whatever that means...families can be pretty big dependign on how you define them) why does it matter when and where that happens. Why does it have to be at a "matriarch's" home when one of the kids has more room and less baggage? Why does it have to be at a home at all? Why can't it be at a church where everyone's come together to worship the reason this time of year is considered special by many? Oh well, human nature being what it is, I expect I do know the answers but I still have to ask.

I'll try to post something a bit more uplifting tomorrow.

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