The Morning Drive | Eastern North Carolina Now

     I have a 30 minute commute to work in the morning. To my way of thinking, it is the perfect distance between my life at home and my job. There is both an opportunity to prepare for the day on the way in, as well as decompress and unwind after all my customers needs have been accommodated. During the drive, my mind often wanders into very predictable questions: What do I need to do today? Are there going to be any big headaches? I wonder what’s for supper? Why is that guy going 75 mph in such a rush to get to work to a job he probably hates?…you get the point.

     However, there are plenty of mornings where my mind goes into much deeper areas of questioning. As I drive along the highway, I nurse my enormous mug of coffee in the same way I envision Hemingway, Sinatra, or Kafka savoring the finest scotch available. My prayers are more earnest for the day ahead of me, I question the nature and role of government in a free society, and I wonder if the past decade of sports for Boston loyalists, such as myself, will ever be duplicated. On these mornings, each moment of the 30 minutes on my commute is not wasted at all.

     Inevitably, my thoughts and emotions turn to the two most important people on this earth to me: my wife and my Dad. While in the throws of gratitude, I wonder how my Dad has done it. At 85 years old, he lives with absolutely no regret. He still smokes 2 cigars per day. When he gets tired of reading the same book for the ump-teenth time, he will look off in the distance and remember. Even if he can’t articulate it now, he remembers all of it. If asked, he recalls D-Day and the frantic process of digging into the cliffs of Normandy at night to escape the strafing bullets from German warplanes. He remembers with great fondness his own father (whom I never got to meet) and the days spent at Fenway Park in Boston watching the Red Sox. He remembers his wild days with his buddies on road trips following Holy Cross football and basketball. But the memories that give him the greatest laughs, smiles, and satisfaction, are of our family. To this day, he loves me and my sisters as if we were still 8 or 9 years old. I speak with him 2 to 3 times per week and the closing of every conversation from him is the same; “I love you, kid.” I can only hope to duplicate that man’s heart.

     My wife thinks I am slow; slow in thought and even slower in action. I want to deny that notion, but I can’t. Like most husbands, I have been given a mind that started to lose its brain cells once the wedding ring was slipped onto my finger. I am comfortable with this notion because it is the reality of being a husband. It’s similar to being a coach in sports these days; they are hired to be fired. Husbands are hired to be wrong! The quicker men accept this notion will result in more wedded bliss. I am also aware that she relies on me. That, too, comes with the covenant of marriage. It makes me more aware of my decisions, my emotions, and my reactions. There are plenty of mornings when I do not go to work because I love my job, but because I love my wife. Each day with her gives me an opportunity to learn from her and with her. She is a tough soul. She has experienced the pain and the joy this life affords us. And through all of it, she still retains the ability to learn, grow, and change. To my way of thinking, that takes chutzpah. It’s one thing to accept adulthood and not fight the notion of changing circumstances. It is quite another to look forward at age 40 and understand that your own life still has infinite possibilities and make necessary changes in order to maximize the opportunities ahead.

     I don’t know if my fellow commuters think this much on their way to work, but if you see me driving and you have a hard time getting my attention, you’ll know where my head and heart are at.