A drive to remember

I drive Charlie to school, 1/2 an hour each way, in the morning, and then I pick him up at night. This is the end of the second week, and it is interesting how you fall into a pattern of awareness about certain things.

Before we reach the main roads we take a lovely, meandering country way through farmland. It is beautiful, and I love to see the cows with their breath steaming in the cold morning air. Sometimes the mist is below the trees and it swirls about in the meadows. I notice things like a line of grass that is brown, surrounded by green. One flower, yellow, all by itself.

One day we drove by a house where a man was washing his car. Nothing unusual about that. The next morning, he was washing his car and using this big thing to dry it. We laughed at the absurdity of this. The next morning I looked closer and realized he was washing a different car. Oh! I said, he must be a car detailer. Charlie didn't know what that meant, and I explained he was washing and cleaning cars -- as a job.

Now we check every morning to see what he is up to. We were a little later today because Charlie starts classes later, and all we saw was a big puddle in the driveway. Clearly the guy is an early bird!

Another thing we encounter are buses. Oh, to get behind the wrong bus can be SUCH a drag! One morning, after dropping Charlie off, I had to stop for a bus coming toward me. I watched as the mother climbed onto the bus with her small son, waited until he reached his seat, then proceeded to chat with the bus driver. It was beyond ridiculous as there were cars lined up as far as the eye could see on both sides, and finally someone honked their horn. The woman climbed off, waved to her son, then walked into her house (which was literally about three feet from the sidewalk.)

The next morning we were behind the bus and I told Charlie that it was going to be a long time. But this time the father put the kid on the bus, and he did it quickly. When we drove by him I snuck a peek. He was probably in his early 20's, shirtless and wearing those pants that are 10 sizes too large. Thankfully he wasn't a chatter!

The next time I saw this bus it had just pulled away from the house and I saw a glimpse of the mother entering the house and closing the door behind her. It was hard to judge if there had been a chat session just on the line of cars behind a bus, because those tend to line up quite quickly, but as the bus passed me I took a long look at the driver. Young girl. Probably a friend of the young mom. Probably doesn't even occur to them that as they stand there chatting they affect the mornings of dozens of people in cars tapping in great frustration on their steering wheels. (Unless of course you are me and are quite vigilant about not getting behind THAT bus!)

My mind whirls with all the different scenarios of this young family. There are two boys, I know, because on Saturday morning when I drove Charlie to school she was walking down the sidewalk clutching their hands. When I passed the house I could see a figure sitting on the couch, shirtless.

Am I a voyeur? Or just bored and trying to fill the time? You tell me.

It is more like landmarks. I know exactly how much time it takes me to get from the car washing guy to the young parents/small boy/talky bus house. 5 minutes if I don't get behind a bus; 8 if I do. Three minutes is not insignificant, and I have it figured out that this little short cut of a road will make a huge difference if I get behind a car that is slow. It is a teeth-knocking, head jerking bit of a ride, but if I can shave off the three minutes I will incur by being behind someone who will slow me down; it's a necessity. I spend about two minutes prior to the turn-off to this road trying to judge of the cars in front of me are slow or progressing at a normal rate. If my foot has to hit the brake even once, I make the turn and brake only for deer (not potholes).

It's all very exciting.

This morning at a stoplight I happened to look up at the windows of a bank and saw a man doing strange hand signals. I couldn't tell if he was talking to someone, but it seemed that his desk was up against the wall and that there wasn't room for anyone else to be in front of him. I found this quite amusing until the light changed, and even cranked my neck as I went forward to see what he was doing. I guess he was talking to someone on the computer. But I am looking forward to checking him out tomorrow. That is a mid-point between the car washing guy and the bus-house. How exciting!

Also in the town of Franklin there are always people sitting on their stoops. There is this one stoop where there are always different people; all a little scary looking, teeth optional. I try to figure them out? Do they live nearby? Are they students? Druggies? This is also by a stoplight, so a red light gives me more time for research.

At Arianna's Restaurant there is a sign that they serve breakfast all day long; but they aren't open at 7:30 a.m. How weird is that? Did they decide to serve breakfast all day long because they open so late and miss most of the breakfast crowd, so they are really catering to the late sleepers and lazy people of the world? There is also a big soft-serve ice cream window on the front, and I can't quite believe that breakfast is going to be very good there. I have no intentions of stopping, for either item. Ever. Just a feeling I have.

Also on the corner of one of the stoplights there is a restaurant that serves Japanese, Chinese and Thai food. Well, which one do they specialize in? Is the cook any of these nationalities, or are they just catering to anyone who feels like Asian food of any kind? I will never go there either. It's just wrong. I am, however, curious about the small storefront that has sunflowers painted on it. It says it is a bakery, and you never know. It could be run by some quirky, wonderful person who really knows how to cook. That one is on my list for one morning. When the stoop is empty.

I have tried all the potential short cuts, only to discover that most are longer. It is bad to head into either of the small "cities" of Franklin and Tilton between the hours of 3-4 because there are two schools and the buses take precedent over anything else. Not to mention loads of high school kids in their cars, all getting trapped between the line of traffic lights that litter the main road.

Sometimes I hit every light, green, green green, and other times I hit them and they are all turning yellow, but I go anyway. Not very often, but occasionally they will be all red. That happened the other day when I got behind a row of buses and then later a nasty white van that kept coughing up black smoke. The whole ride sucked and was a FULL TEN MINUTES longer than it's ever been.

So I try to think happy thoughts and be calm and flow my way to and from, because Charlie is a freshman and it's going to be a loooooong haul!