A Different Destination from a Different Direction

In some ways, it was a typical week, although this kind of week won't be typical much longer; yesterday I had a long car trip (by long, I mean over 4 hours).  It was a long car trip, but it was to a different destination from a different direction.

Yesterday I left our Lutheridge house to drive to Williamsburg, Virginia to spend some time with my parents before my summer schedule intensifies.  I wrote out the directions on a sticky note, which I stuck to my phone.  I am not one of those people who trusts that I will always be able to access GPS, and I've gotten lost enough times by relying on my memory of the directions I had read a few days ago to know that I must write out the directions in full enough sentences that they won't be confused for a grocery list/beginning of a poem.

I drove the parts of I 40 going east, the parts that I've only traveled twice before, once as a high school student going from Knoxville to do a college visit at Lenoir-Rhyne and once traveling with one of my best high school friends, going from Raleigh back to Knoxville for our 20 year high school reunion).  Then I got on I 85, an interstate I traveled back in college when I went from Newberry, South Carolina to my parents' house in northern Virginia.

I was surprised by the lack of development in this area which seems like it should be a major travel corridor as we go from North Carolina to Virginia.  Instead, I traveled through dappled forests, half expecting to see a soldier from a past century emerge from the shadows.

I took back roads to Williamsburg, a route which seemed so underdeveloped that I pulled over and plugged the address into my phone and let Google Maps direct me through the exact same directions in handwriting on the note stuck to my phone.  As I approached the James River, I thought, am I taking the route that will have me take a ferry?  Happily, there was a drawbridge, small by modern measurements, but sturdy.

On the way back, I'll enjoy the ride more--yesterday I felt a bit impatient to get there, and a bit anxious that I would end up in some strange part of Virginia, lost in a swampy coastline.  But happily, my directions yesterday got me to my parents' house.  

I went with them to be part of the group that goes to the memory care unit once a month to sing to the residents.  We start in front of a group that has no clue who we are or why we are there, but their faces are friendly.  We sing songs from the early part of the twentieth century, songs like "Bicycle Built for Two" and "Ain't She Sweet," and songs that celebrate the U.S., like "God Bless America," and we end with a service song from each branch of the military.  By the end, everyone is singing, mouthing words, and/or tapping their fingers.

I knew all of the songs--years of elementary school choir classes taught me all sorts of songs.  The experience did make me think about today's children who will likely grow up with a base of fewer communal songs to sing.  What will make them tap their fingers when they're in the memory care unit?  And the younger generation who comes to sing for/with them--how will they learn the songs?