Looking back

I have now been there and quite possibly done that… well more likely I was there, never did that, heard someone had once done that, and then decided to do something else.

Somewhere in Maryland.

I scroll back through the year’s posts, peruse the map, and scroll through countless photos and am surprised at all the things that never made it to the website.

There is the time in Connecticut where I was startled awake by a voice saying, “someone’s sleeping in there.”   I nervously rolled out of the hammock, stepped out of the driver’s side door, and found myself surrounded by five Police cars and twice as many officers.  The one shining a flashlight in my face asked, “what’s going on?”  I responded I was tired and decided to get some sleep before working in the morning.  He looked at the officer next to him, said, “good enough for me,” and they all drove off without another word.  I was left just standing there feeling quite wise for sleeping fully clothed.

Sometimes you just want to pull over but can't find anywhere to do it.

I never wrote about who I have noticed uses those Rascal scooters in the front of Walmarts.  Who uses them was never really the point, but what has still never ceased to bother me is that those little contraptions do not come equipped with turn signals and those who drive them neither look over their shoulders before turning, nor do they drive in straight lines.

I never did write about that night at a Jersey diner after the show in New York.  It was like a scene from a really bad movie.

Retrospect

I never told about the hitchhiker in North Carolina who spent five hours on the road with me.  His Navy stories were great, his preaching was inspirational but doctrinally suspect, and I felt bad for his kids.  He said he had been walking I-95 to bring people the word for over 5 years.

In upstate New York I watched a man leap over the counter in the back of Walmart to snatch a receipt out of a clerk’s hand.  She screamed in fear for her life as he ran through the entire store, straight out the front doors.  At least five employees watched curiously, and motionless, as he ran by.

Home away from home.

I never mentioned the American Antiquarian Society in Massachusetts, the Boxing Hall of Fame, my new found love of the word Hamlet to describe a country town, and I failed to write about the conversation in the men’s room in which I was told it is a proven fact that Obama is a Muslim.

Where did you go this year?

In essence I have stuck my nose in every corner of South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and New Hampshire.

So now the inevitable question…

Now what?