I made it back to town with minimal delay from the outskirts of Pittsburgh just after the noon hour passed. It was a glorious day, part of the same weather system Jinny had directed for her interment. I was listening to the audio version of this month’s Book Group selection, a strange novel set in Australia, and narrated by a marvelous Aussie woman whose precise nasal diction gave added life to the accelerating sense of doom that transformed the frothy story of suburban beach life with Kindergarten Kids into something quite sinister.

“Big Little Lies” is the name of it, by Liane Moriarty. Great listen on the road, BTW, and I endorse it. I have also decided to stop talking to men and women as a result. But that is another story, like the one that occurred to me as I was rolling down the big slope from the plateau of central Pennsylvania- Pennsyltucky, as Heather would call it, poking fun at the sticks away from the Bright Lights of DC. Down near the bottom of the hill lies Maryland, where I should pull over and re-pack the more lethal elements of my cargo but don’t.

And don’t yell at me about the disparaging term for Penn’s Woods. We Socotras get buried up there, in a little town called Shippensburg, and Heather grew up not far from there.

Anyway, the point of that was the observation that everyone my brother and I encountered on the epic voyage of the 1959 Rambler station-wagon was nice. That included Wheeling, West Virginia, Dayton, Ohio, Kokomo, Indiana, Sunbury, Seville and Medina, Ohio, and that nice registration team at the legacy Holiday Inn at Monroeville off the PA Turnpike.

The latter gave me two free drink passes, and if that is not hospitality, I don’t know what is!

Anyway, I can’t quite put my finger on what it was. The open smiles of greeting? The seemingly genuine interest in what was going on around us? The ability to laugh, or empathize with circumstance? Waiting outside the one-holer at the bar in Medina, I had a dialogue with Gordon about life and eternity, and his kidney transplant, all in less than the few minutes it took for Tony to emerge. The exchange with Beth at the registration desk in Pennsylvania about free-range parenting, and how outraged she was that her two-year-old could not ride on her lap in the driver’s seat of her old Toyota without being threatened with child endangerment.

Or Stacey in Kokomo, who granted us a way-early check-in at the hotel after we confided that we really needed it since the antique car was being chased by Zombies.

“I totally understand,” she said conspiratorially. “Happens here all the time.”

That doesn’t even begin to deal with the simple humanity of the gals who made us lunch at the Good To Go convenience and liquor store in Friendsville, MD, or the grace of the Funeral Director from the Murray Funeral Home in Creston, OH. There is a lot to be learned from those who make nourishing meals for the long-haul community or regularly interface with the Great Beyond, and who do so with aplomb and grace.

And that is not to mention the basic goodness of J.D. the tow truck driver, nor the guys who manhandled the burial vault around, and filled the grave with such delicacy that the Funeral Director said that he could comb hair with the teeth of the bucket on his machine.

Good folks. I came away from each encounter buoyed by a sense of community, which is not exactly what you get around here.

I was coming to a dramatic moment in chapter 62 of Big Little Lies as I was approaching Hagarstown, MD, on the last fifty-something miles into Washington. As I mentioned, the day was lovely, and I had not heard a horn sound in the last 1,600 miles on the road, nor received the universal digital sign of approbation for anything, despite having to maintain a speed less than the legal limit due to the Rambler’s limitations.

Still, I kept a decent scan on what was going on around me, and glancing up at the rear view, I saw a yellow Cooper mini thundering up on my tail, settle in way too close, and commence to flashing its lights. I looked around in mild disbelief, since there was a sei-trailer to my right and a trail of vehicles ahead of me in the ostensible passing lane, headed uphill.

Where did the driver of the mini think he was going? What would he do when he got there?

When I could safely get over, I did so, signally my intention as I waited for the headlight of the truck to appear in the rear-view to give him enough room. The Mini boiled past, and I shot a glance at the occupants. Hipsters. Aggressive hipsters.

A couple of hills later, traffic came to a standstill, and emergency vehicles were streaming up, presumably to the site of an accident. I wondered if I would see the mangled remains of the Mini, but did not, and I chided myself (briefly) for the momentary feeling of schadenfreude I felt, hoping that the rude (and unsafe) driving had been rewarded with the consequences.

It wasn’t, mores the pity, but I realized I had penetrated the penumbra of the National Capital Region, and things got wilder immediately, cars darting this way and that to gain minute advantage in the increasingly congested travel lanes.

I have nothing whatsoever against hipsters, nor about fast driving, of course. But whether you approach the Capital from north or south, from Maryland or Virginia, you can feel a sort of manic energy, and a focus on raw self that is positively disquieting. And, for the record, I am sure that I act the same way in self-defense.

It will come as no surprise that I occasionally find myself muttering that everyone in town is loony-tunes, and attuned to the fact that I am one of them.

But on this particularly bright and brilliant morning, I had a minor epiphany. It wasn’t the road to Damascus, but rather I-270 near Rockville when I realized I really don’t like this place much any more. It is too nuts, and my experience on the road just reinforced my sentiment.

Way outside the Beltway, people seem to just keep their heads up, smile and get on with things. Inside? We are hunched over our wheels and fighting for advantage.

I suppose there is a time and place for everything, but I think it is about time to go live in America for a while, and see what that is like. I think it could be refreshing. A pal was talking this morning about a place called “Siesta Key.” I think I might check it out.

(Town Square, Medina, Ohio).

Copyright 2016 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com