Road trip

VIEWPOINT

By RALPH HARDIN

Evening Times Editor

Fun fact about me: I hate driving. Wait, let me make that clearer… I hate travelling. Whatever thrill there was for me to be had by being in a car, on the road, either in the driver’s seat or any of the passengers’ accommodations, left me long, long ago — if it was ever there at all.

Like, I was a month shy of 17 before I even bothered to get my driver’s license, and even then, it was because my Mom got tired of having to drive me to school or to work or to my girlfriend’s house. But driving (and riding) are just things you have to do to get where you need to go, especially if two-thirds of your kids, your sister and her family, and your best friends all move as far away from you as they can and still be in the State of Arkansas. So, with that in mind, my wife and I headed up to the Fayet-

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teville area for the weekend.

If you’ve ever made that trip, you know it’s a long one — a solid five hours factoring in stops — and closer to six for us since our actual destination for these trips is usually my son’s house, which is like two miles from the Missouri border in Bella Vista.

Luckily, my wife likes to drive, and she definitely prefers her own brand of driving to mine, which is a “Fast and Furious” versus “Driving Miss Daisy” sort of comparison to be honest. So, she is usually content to do the lion’s (lioness’s?) share of the driving in our relationship.

Except this time, I guess…

She had to work Friday while I only had to tie up some loose ends, send some emails and finish up the Monday eedition of the Times that Ihad already mostly done the night before. So, when she got home, she said those three words that change my whole attitude about going anywhere at all — “Can you drive?”

Sigh… she might as well have just said, “You drive,” because at that point, I can’t say no. So it was I who headed down I-40. You ever hear that song, “The Road Goes on Forever and the Party Never Ends?” Well, the first part of that is definitely true.

We got there just fine, and as I type this, she has given me her assurances that she’s good to drive back home later today. Which is good, because I’m not… unless she asks.