(Please enjoy this excerpt from ONE WRONG TURN AT A TIME, my humor book-in-progress that chronicles adventures I’ve shared with my other half as we’ve trekked around the 50 states over our 45 years together. This piece appeared previously in a 2018 blog post but has been tweaked, as all writing must be when it resurfaces. Cheers!)
#
It was the perfect getaway. Rice and me. A lake house—beautiful, rustic, chic. The water—clear, aqua, expansive. It smelled clean as rain against the fresh cut grass on the sloping lot. A couple icy adult beverages and some down time on the dock were just the ticket.
Spotty cell service? No problem. We were on the water. Lake Martin, Alabama. Ahhh.
I felt alive in a way I hadn’t for ages. Eying the jet skis tied at the dock, I called dibs on the red one. Named her Stella, then bragged to Rice about how the next day, Stella and I would go out and spin double nickels! (That’s code for 55, my pending age at the time, and the speed limit I was ready to push.)
“Why wait?” Rice asked, his grin wide.
The next thing I knew, I was bouncing across the lake, wind and water whipping my hair. It was pure heaven. Finding the marina “beyond the point,” I gassed Stella up for the next day.
Back out on the water, I hugged the shore closer this time. Feeling the waves beneath me, I passed colorful clusters of Adirondack chairs …cozy cottages…flapping flags. Then I passed them again. And again. Meanwhile, black clouds loomed. Lightning flirted, about to flicker.
Rice tells me he grew uneasy as darkness began to set in. Where was I? He drove to the nearby marina and learned that I’d stopped there for gas…over a half hour earlier.
When he returned to the lake house, I was still gone. Under his breath he cursed me for leaving without my phone, despite…well, spotty cell service. Not to be stymied, he called the police to brainstorm how he might track me down. To his dismay, officers came to the house, walked him down to the deck, and peppered him with questions, shining their flashlights into the dark depths around them.
Meanwhile, out on the lake….
Hellz, yes, I was lost. So lost I couldn’t even sniff my way back to the marina.
I tried not to panic. How could I ask for directions when I couldn’t recall the address or the name of the subdivision where we were staying.
Spotting a father and son casting lines from their dock, I inched Stella up, close enough to share my woes. Perhaps they noticed I looked like a deer in headlights when they tried to explain the way back to the marina. Against claps of thunder, they powered up their boat and led me back there themselves.
At the marina, I asked another boater if I could borrow a phone to reach out to Rice.
Alas…I think I’ve mentioned spotty cell service?
Needing to gather my wits, I went inside the marina shop to buy a healthy snack. (Okay, I bought a wine cooler and cigs. Don’t judge.)
“Are you Jan?” the clerk asked.
I raised my eyebrows. “Yes?”
“An elderly gentleman stopped in an hour or so ago,” he continued. “He was worried about his wife Jan out on the water.”
Oh, my dear, sweet man….
But oof. Elderly gentleman? At the risk of going to hell, I admit, that made me snicker.
I shouldn’t have laughed, though. Because apparently, I think much the way an elderly gentleman does. Trying to figure out ways to connect back to Rice, I thought of the police, too, and asked if someone could give me a ride to the station.
The next thing I knew, I was in a jeep, jostling around back roads of the lake with two young dudes I’d never met before in my life. Had I not seen enough episodes of Law & Order to know better?
Blame it on the wine cooler. Or the optimism of youth—theirs. When these guys insisted they knew the lake and knew we could find the lake house, any danger radar I had failed me.
“Can you remember any landmarks?” the driver asked.
Breeze rustled my hair, helping me think. “A little chapel, maybe?”
He took a few turns, and the other guy asked, “Any road names?”
Suddenly, I envisioned a street sign that Rice and I had passed earlier.
“Peckerwood!” I blurted.
Yes, I was mortified that’s the particular name I remembered. Yet seconds later, we turned onto Peckerwood Road. And, in short time, we did find the lake house.
The jeep engine idled as the front door of the lake house flung open. Rice rushed out onto the driveway, two law officers on his tail. He looked ashen from worry—indeed elderly. For a moment I thought he might chew me out. Instead, he lumbered over and hugged me. Tight.
The officers left PDQ. Almost as quickly as my rescuers, who hightailed it before we could even offer a reward. Maybe because of the open beer containers on the jeep floor.
Minutes later, Rice shook his head while plopping ice cubes into glasses.
“All I could see were the headlines,” he said. “Georgia man arrested after wife disappears on Alabama lake.”
He handed me a glass, and I studied him—flushed, relieved, slap-happy. Both of us were.
“Maybe that was your plan all along?” I ribbed him. “To lose the wife.”
Before he could respond, I had a slightly more serious question. “How could you not remember, after 30-plus years with me, that I get lost everywhere, even in my own driveway?”
To Rice’s credit, he didn’t attempt a comeback.
Sometimes you’ve just gotta shrug, grin, and give in to the crazy.
#
There’s a terse but accurate way I sometimes describe what I write about, at least in the nonfiction world:
“A marriage…forty-plus years…fifty states…one wrong turn at a time.”
What can I say? It takes courage to take jabs at my family in print, sharing personal tales from the many ages and stages of doing life together. My loved ones can’t thank me enough for being so brave, but I blame Erma. She led the way, sharing this truth: “Humor writers all have something in common. We share part of our personal and private lives that few other writers share.”
Humorist Erma Bombeck imparted plenty of wisdom like that as she poked fun at life in the suburbs from the 1960s through the 1990s. I can still see my mom, back in the day, coffee cup in hand, chuckling over the latest from Erma’s syndicated column, "At Wit's End." Imagine, daily newspapers—then in their glory days—were delivered by kids on bikes, with a choice of morning or evening distribution. We got the morning edition each day, and I remember snatching The Detroit Free Press from Mom after she’d read it, craving a dose of Erma for myself.
As Erma frequently showed us, “There is a fine line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt.” That’s one of the things I loved most about her. She reminded us that life combines all the things. We don’t get to pick and choose which emotion to feel at a given time.
When I write, I feel Erma’s influence, regaling readers with memories of family farces through the years. Our experiences aren’t so much unique as universal. I mean, young or old, married or single, who hasn’t experienced a breakdown on the road? Or missed a flight? When those glitches get under your skin, listen to Erma: “If you can’t make it better, you can laugh at it.”
Speaking of the road, in April I hit it once more, this time without my partner in crime. Part of me worried. How would I hold up driving six-plus hours straight, lugging my own bags, and handling all the travel minutia that drives me insane? Then a smile crossed my lips. I could do things my way, deciding on my own when and where to stop for gas or grab a bite to eat.
While I truly believe, “Life is less about the destination than the journey," here’s the thing. I was headed to the 2024 Erma Bombeck Writing Workshop at the University of Dayton. So destination did matter. Big time. And lucky for me, my journey went fine, kind of like this:
“A woman traveling solo…sixty-six years…four states…one CarPlay glitch and rest area snooze at a time.”
The workshop itself—the destination—was ah-maz-ing. Presenters and keynotes included Pulitzer Prize winner Anna Quindlen, Beth Lapides, and poet/healer Barbara Fant. Jessica Strawser, Ann Garvin, and Tiffany Yates Martin. Cindy Ratzlaff and Kathy Kinney (Mimi from The Drew Carey Show). Jacquelyn Mitchard and memoirist Wade Rouse, who also writes fiction under his grandmother’s name, Viola Shipman…so that she can live on. How I love that man.
For two and a half days, I met new friends, learned boatloads of craft tips, and ate lots of cake. Now back home, like my Erma sisters (and, yes, a few brothers), I vow to cut back on the cake but keep the creativity flowing. Not because I’m the most creative or talented, but because I can.
I have a coffee cup to prove it. It says, “You can write.” ~ Erma Bombeck
#
(Please enjoy another excerpt from ONE WRONG TURN AT A TIME, my humor book-in-progress that chronicles adventures I’ve shared with my other half as we’ve trekked all 50 states as a couple. This piece dates back to a day trip we took as young parents to three littles. As the saying goes, the days are long but the years are short. And so, too, were many of our trips back then.)
#
~ Spring 1992. House poor but rich with family (translation: we had three kids), our travel adventures kept us close to home. Sometimes on sunny Saturdays, we’d pack up Old Gray, the Ford Taurus wagon that moved us safely from Colorado to Georgia the previous year, and hit the road to explore. That’s how we came to venture to Paradise Garden, home to folk artist Howard Finster and his massive collection of work.
I might not have even heard of the Reverend Howard Finster if not for my sister, Lynne, an art teacher and collector. Finster, whom some call the Andy Warhol of the South, was a former Baptist preacher turned self-taught artist. Before his death in 2001, he produced 46,991 pieces of art, often of angels or pop culture icons or historical figures. “Commissioned by God,” he handwrote a faith-laced message on each piece of art, all individually numbered.
A master of many trades, Finster also created a 2.5-acre art environment as a home to his collection of sculptures and repurposed items. Paradise Garden is located in Summerville, Georgia, north of Rome but south of Cloudland Canyon State Park.
Back in ’92, I owned one of Finster’s painted cats. So why not visit his garden?
Primed for adventure, we headed toward Summerville, hoping that signs would lead the way to Finster’s place. No such luck. And this was back in the days before Google and everyday access to the Internet.
No worries, though. Finster was famous. Certainly, someone could help us along the way.
We stopped at McDonald’s for lunch and to ask for directions. The clerk had not heard of the Reverend Finster.
Rice groused under his breath, something about chasing unicorns, I think.
Undeterred, I asked again, this time at a gas station.
The young attendant pointed. “I think it’s back toward the penitentiary.”
Um…, Lynne hadn’t mentioned a penitentiary. But I pushed aside any anxious thoughts to let my excitement shine through. Rice pursed his lips but agreed to keep going, instructing Alex and me to stay on the lookout for signs to the penitentiary.
The good news? The said penitentiary turned out to be the Chattooga County Jail.
The bad news? We soon determined we were driving in circles—or rather, one big square block along a rural road of small ranch houses dotting large lots. I tried not to pout as Rice pulled into a driveway to turn around.
And now for the worst news. Rice cut the turn short.
Poor Old Gray was now stuck on a jagged old drainpipe connecting the driveway and the ditch. Rice tried to rock the car back and forth, which didn’t help get her unstuck. Nor did it comfort those of us not in the driver’s seat.
Daniel started to cry. (Sorry to narc you out, Dan, but you were little and understandably scared.) I walked the kids across the street to a vast green field, partly as a distraction but also to get them away from their father. To be fair, Rice is not the family cusser. He leaves that to me. At that moment, though, he was letting some mighty colorful language rip.
What happened next unfurled like a dream, except it was real. It happened.
A lady drove up to Old Gray on some fancy tractor-powered lawnmower. Pink slippers peeked out beneath her flowing blue muumuu. Daniel began to quiet, watching his dad and the lady hook Old Gray to the trailer and prepare her for tow.
Success followed. And at the exact instant Old Gray steadied her way back onto the road, the girls squealed, “We found a four-leaf clover!”
Of course, they swore their discovery brought us a change of luck.
Maybe.
But I think perhaps that pink-slippered lady was really an angel. She did get us back on the road and provide some spot-on directions to Paradise Garden, where we spent hours exploring. The place really escapes description except to say that it’s creepy and amazing. And unforgettable.
Almost as unforgettable as our 1992 journey to get there.
#
