Going for a drive/ Salt & Pepper Locks

TO QUELL THE FIRE OF ANGER, YOU MUST FIND COMPASSION

My mother asked me to ride with her across town the other day, I didn't really want to go, but I don't get to see her much so I said "sure momma." 

We started out from the house, driving down to the end of the block. I figured she would go straight and merge onto the interstate, it runs parallel to my folks' neighborhood. Instead, she made a left. Ok, maybe she's going to hop onto the expressway at the river, no big deal. She did as I expected, and we crossed to the other side. Then she ... exited onto the surface streets again.

You see a drive "crosstown" in my hometown is a 25 to 30 minute proposition -- if you take the interstate. Drop down to the side streets and the trip we made, out near the beaches, can easily take an hour each way.

Patience isn't exactly one of my strong suits, all who know me know that about me. I mean I'm working on it, I just come up short more often then I'd care to admit.  Anyway, at this point I'm seeing red! With every side street she turns onto, my blood pressure ticks up just a bit more. Right at the point where I couldn't take it anymore I look over to my mother, trying to take as much bass out of my voice as I could, "momma, why did you go this way?" "I don't drive that other way," she snapped back quickly. She knew what I was thinking the whole time -- she is my mother after all.  As soon as she said that it clicked with me just what the problem was -- the bridge.

Let's just say her foreboding for this bridge isn't exactly unfounded. Aside from being so high that you can't see the rest of the damn thing for the approach ramp, and the fact that the wind typically plays with your car a bit as you drive across. Not to mention that the "guard rails" are so thin that if you walk up and lean against it you would break through and fall 15 stories or so into the river. All those facts aside, this bridge has its own body count. In other words, it actually HAS killed people.

"She's just scared," I thought as I pulled myself away from my mental tangent and back into the car. "Scared?" Not a word usually associated with my old bird. She's tough. You just have to be growing up in the deep South in the 60's, helping her mother raise a house filled with brothers. Then raising two sons and a daughter of her own.

I look over at her grasping, almost clutching, the steering wheel at 10 and two, and I notice the grey peppered through her Locks. She is getting older, in all honesty, dying slowly right in front of me. I throw my head into the air coming in through my window. It dries up the tears welling up in my eyes.  It's funny how God taps you on the shoulder to point things out sometimes.

We drive along a little while longer, "why? You in a hurry son? Where do you have to be?" I lean back in my seat, "go whichever way you want momma. We got time."