Driving Through Time

Route 6 in northern PA takes you across the entire state without a single rest stop and only one gas station. Lance had never heard of it until yesterday. Rising early, he checked out of the venerable (read "decrepit") Penn Wells Hotel in Wellsboro, Pa. having survived the smallest, hottest room in America. He ruefully noted the gleaming Christmas Trees Ornament American Flag on the lobby wall, made of 1,400 glass red, white and blue bulbs, a proud gift of the local Corning glass factory employees as once featured in LIfe magazine. Lance grabbed a bagel at Native Bagels by the village green, now awash in early morning sprinkler dew, and headed for the Grand Canyon of PA in Leonard Harrison State Park near Ansonia. (Maybe Lance's new semi-retired friend Melvin ":The Tioga Town Supervisor and volunteer Village Green Tender" was already on duty.)

Thirty minutes later, Lance peered down the sheer cliff into the tree lined river bed below. He suddenly flashed on a 13 year old boy and his Dad, hiking an even deeper gorge out West with his aunt and uncle in the '60's. When his dad's knees gave out on the steep trails, Lance insisted on staying with him while the others went ahead to get a mule to bring him out. He remembered it as his first real brush with manhood, steadfastly maintaining his post until help arrived. Just him and his dad.. and, of course, the wolves. Or something like that.

At breakfast, a kindly couple told him about Presque Isle in Erie Pa. a state park jutting out from the city of Erie into Lake Erie. The whole peninsula is driveable, habitat preserved, boasting 10 beaches and a Coast Guard base overlookingthe city of Erie and, somewhere due north, Canada. They said the sunset looking west over the Lake is breathtaking. "Breathtaking is a good enough reason to drive across the whole State." thought Lance. So he did.

Gliding through the mountains of central Pa and snaking through the Allegheny National Forest while playing a 3 disk composite set of CD's made for his 60th birthday party by his children, Lance's mind traveled back in time with The Four Seasons, Chicago, The Four Tops and James Taylor. Technicolor visions of Takoma Park Teen Club, Blair High School shows, Street 70 summer productions, AAA Safety Patrol Camp counseling, old girlfriends and long forgotten college adventures flashed by as fast as the rural mailboxes and rusting cars lining the road. When he awoke from the reverie, he was just outside of Erie and hungry.

At lunch, a gentleman from Minnesota at the next table relished Lance's questions about Life 3.0 having recently taken a buyout and making the transition himself. Now, he consults part-time, golfs a little, helps out at his wife's shop and does some traveling. He lamented that most of his friends are younger than he (60!), still working, and therefore unavailable when he gets the itch to do something, People seem to disappear when they retire, he noted. Lance, temporarily self-disappeared, wondered how long it would take before that could become a permanent state for him.

BTW This blog title, A Fork In The Road, is a triple entendre. ("-Scout" was added when the title was already taken. He's our dog.) First, the trip was partially conceived under the magic spell of Diners, Drive In's and Dives where road food is always amazing when served with a big helping of community..hence the "fork" and "road."

Second, arriving at a real fork in the road, and actually having the freedom to choose either road ("...and sorry I could not travel both..:Frost), has long been Lance's desire almost every day of his 30+ years of daily commuting.

Third, Lance is approaching a Fork in the Road of Life as he rounds 60 and sees so many talented youth coming up behind him at work. There is an awakening of perspective in him, a new awareness of his own power and potential, born of confidence in his life record and relationships. A voice, no...a song, has been urging him to look around and grasp things just out of reach and just around the corner. Things always just out of sight on the daily path. So, here he is. Looking around the corner.

Gazing at a map late last night, he suddenly realized he was only an hour from Chautauqua...an almost mythical community of learning on a lake in upstate New York. Rev. Lon Dring, an old friend and respected community activist, used to extoll the annual virtues of Chautauqua as a "Disney World of the Mind." To Lance, after three days with little mental stimulation, this was the equivalent of smelling the distant water of an oasis while lost in the desert. Within minutes, he was booked into a One Day Special deal at the venerable (oh, God) Atheaneum Hotel including room, dinner, evening Amphitheatre performance, breakfast, morning lecture, lunch and all-park access. Heaven awaited.

One bucket list item less...check.