The First Leg of Thanksgiving Travels

After a satisfying Saturday (a great PAC meeting at school, followed by an afternoon of homemade pizza creating and eating at home), I got up yesterday morning and was on the road by 3:15 a.m., while my spouse stayed behind to teach his Philosophy classes this week.

While I will miss him, it's going to be a great week of reconnecting with friends and family along the way to Thanksgiving.  And if I had stayed at home, I wouldn't have seen much of him anyway--such is the life of an adjunct Philosophy instructor.

Sunday morning turns out to be a great time to travel up the spine of the state.  There's none of the overnight road construction that plagues the Florida traveler on any other day.  The traffic is light when one leaves at 3:15 a.m., and because it's Sunday, there's not any rush hour snags further on up the road to slow one down.

I ate carrots and grapes and homemade bread as I drove.  I caught great NPR shows:  On Being featured a fascinating discussion with Marilynne Robinson and Marcelo Gleiser, and as I got further away from home, there was an NPR show from Wisconsin about books and authors.

I figured out where to go for my next chapter of my apocalyptic, Graham Greene-esque novel.  I haven't done significant work on that book since September, and I'm glad to have a direction.  My online classes are coming to an end, so I should have several weeks to make some progress.

Yesterday I went as far as Columbia, SC, where I reconnected with a grad school friend.  Today when she goes to teach her classes, I will reconnect with another grad school friend.

The University of South Carolina has had significant growth since I finished my PhD in 1992, at least in terms of buildings.  Here and there, I see a building from the old days, a building often dwarfed by the newer, shinier, taller buildings.

It's interesting to think of this town as the place where I started to construct the first phase of my working life (the teaching which would then lead to college administration) and where I hope to construct a different phase of my working life--when I work on the certificate in spiritual direction, I will come to the campus of Southern Seminary, which is also in this town, for the onground intensives.

My grandfather went to Southern when he was constructing what would be the totality of his working life, being a parish pastor.  My grandmother kept the letter that the seminary sent him during the depths of the Great Depression, a letter that said that they really couldn't encourage him to go to Seminary since they couldn't be sure there would be a job at the end.  My memory of this letter I saw only once is that it said that he should stay on the farm, since there would be food at least.

My grandfather took the gamble, left the farm, met my grandmother while he was an intern in east Tennessee.  I'm hoping to have a life-changing experience there too.