I flew from San Francisco, California to Atlanta, Georgia with the intention of driving to Chattanooga and Nashville in Tennessee. This drive was going to traverse the Bible Belt in the American South.
And so, I rented a car at the airport and began my drive. The evening had come to a close. The road ahead was cloaked in darkness. There was plenty of traffic still on the Interstate. Maybe the folks in Atlanta worked long hours. Downtown loomed in the distance. First up was a tower on the right side, its name lit up proudly in glowing letters. It looked like the proverbial Tower of Power.
I was driving in the fast lane, moving with the flow of the traffic. About half an hour into the drive, a driver appeared behind me. He flashed his lights, once and then twice. Presumably that was a code for me to move aside. I had heard that such signaling was common on the Autobahns of Germany.
The car, a fire-engine red Chevy Camaro, was coming toward me fast and furious. I moved over to let him pass. The muscle car had personalised Ohio license plates which read: Riad. As I recalled from my frequent visits to Frankfurt, enroute to Riyadh, that was how the Germans spelled the name of the Saudi capital city.
The speeding driver continued to push several other drivers out of the fast lane until he found his match. As night fell, the two drivers had decided to play hide and seek at 80+ mph. On TV, this would have been entertaining to watch. But this was no The Dukes of Hazzard show. It was life or death on wheels, happening right in front of my eyes, threatening to suck me into the vortex. At some point, one of the drivers exited the freeway. The curtains fell on the show, mercifully.
Then there appeared a large billboard. “Jesus is Lord,” it said. But it was the byline that hit me: “And you know it.” Who was that reference to? Was it to me?
The freeway went past numerous battlefields and their inevitable end-result, cemeteries. Most of them seemed to date back to the Civil War. There was also an exit for an Indian mound. Later, I found out that it was a major historic site frequently visited by school children.
Finally, a sign appeared that would prove to be prophetic: “It was a rainy night in Georgia.” Within a few miles of the sign, a light rain began to fall.
I was now driving past Lookout Mountain and climbing across the Appalachian Trail. Traffic had thinned out and my mind began to wander toward the possibility of a flat tire and how would one get help were that to happen. Would I even get a cell phone connection here in the mountains to summon help?
As if to make the concept even more tangible, a semi tractor-trailer truck with a flat tire swung into view. He was being assisted by a repair crew in a pick-up truck that was parked diagonally across the back of the semi, intruding into the slow lane of the freeway to protect the repairman. Special equipment was being used to loosen the lug-nuts. Now I had seen everything and did not want to imagine any further what would happen to me if I had a flat. Fortunately, that just remained a gedanken (thought) experiment.
Two and a half hours after I had left the airport, Chattanooga swung into view. I drove past the Public Library and wondered what type of collections it had on the Civil War.
After all, Tennessee had been a proud member of the Confederacy and had been the site of a major battle. I imagined I was at the front desk, asking the aging clerk as to where I would find the Civil War collection. I could hear the clerk responding: “Excuse me, boy. Are you referring to the War of Northern Aggression?”
My hotel, stately on the outside, began to show its age as I entered my room. While it was capacious, the thermostat did not seem to do anything. The air conditioner and fan just kept on running regardless of how you set it. I just turned it off. It was just too noisy and windy.
The room had been super cooled when I entered it and was clearly wasting energy. But the lights were all compact fluorescents designed to save energy. Perhaps that was a vindication of the Law of Conservation of Energy. The bathtub had yellowish-green rings around the drain, deterring me from taking a bath to wash off the weariness that comes from a long day of travel. In the morning I discovered that I was standing in four-inch-deep water during the shower even though the drain was fully open.
The downtown had some interesting buildings.
After my work ended in Chattanooga, I got on the road again. This time I was heading toward Nashville, in the heart of Middle Tennessee. I had been told by a friend to be careful on the drive, since it was going to become mountainous and circuitous just a half hour out of Chattanooga. I recall riding an airport shuttle van one time on this road and seeing a semi running out of control on the decline section. At some point he decided to pull over into the wide grassy median and slammed on his brakes. We could see the smoke billowing from the tires. Our shuttle driver commented in the local accent and idiom: “He sure shut that dude down.”
That ejaculation was fresh in my memory as I got behind the wheel. Later, on Wikipedia, I would read that that stretch of road is regarded as one of the most dangerous in the country. The area is called Monteagle and that is where the highway crosses the Cumberland Plateau. While the 4-6%grade is not the steepest in the country, the slope is protracted and runs over several miles. The article said that “truckers are particularly vexed by Monteagle, and many had died going through this area.” It added: “Accidents and severe congestion are common here.” That tragic history had been immortalised by Johnny Cash.
There was more light on the road this time than the previous evening, because I had hit the road an hour before sunset. A friend had advised me before I left Chattanooga to check out the country music and to have a bottle of whiskey on his behalf. I knew that I would be unable to fulfill the latter request. But I knew I could listen to the country music for which the city was famous.
So, I turned on the radio. A Bible station came on. I kept changing stations but all I kept getting were Bible stations. So, I decided to stay with one where the dialogue was crisp and sharp. After all, we were talking about the Last Judgment and our ultimate and permanent placement in Heaven or Hell. A guest was on the show. He had authored a book, “Before Amen.” He was telling us that all the prayers in the Bible are one simple prayer. And then he proceeded to recite it.
He was asking us to pray to God, who we were told was our Heavenly Father. The pastor told us that he had three sons, and they could approach him anytime and ask a question or request help. He said, being their dad, he did not care in what style the question was asked as long as it was asked with humility.
A woman called and said that the Heavenly Father metaphor was not going to work for her since her dad was abusive. The pastor said to not let that hold her back since God was a congenial father. She replied, then why did He give me a less than congenial Dad for me on earth. A man called and said his prayers were not being heard. He was told to not lose patience and to keep on praying. He would be rewarded for his good intentions in the afterlife. Another person called and wondered if his prayers would make any difference, since God had predetermined just about everything in our life. He was told to keep asking the question even though it had no easy answer.
Finally, the exit arrived. Now I was just a mile from my hotel, according to the extremely helpful GPS device in the car. And then came a heavenly downpour. There was no other word for it. It blinded me and shook my beliefs in my ability to drive. All I could see in my rearview mirror, with some apprehension, was that I was merging into a long stream of headlights, all of which were coming straight toward me. A gap developed and I merged into the multi-lane road. I could now see the street I would have to take to get to the hotel. It was two traffic lights signs away. Doing my best not to miss it, in poor visibility, I ended up turning at the first light. The street signs were impossible to read in the rain. I had to wait for another gap to develop before I could turn at the second light. Finally, the gap developed, and I got back on the road, turned at the correct light, found the hotel, and parked. That was the end of the road. I had arrived. In one piece. It was nothing short of a miracle!
Compared to the weighty and open-ended conversations about God that I had encountered on the Road to Middle Tennessee, my presentation on entirely secular issues paled into insignificance. Of course, there was the occasional skeptic in the audience who questioned my assertions, sometimes with a vituperative tongue. It was during a couple of those tense exchanges that I heard myself whispering the Lord’s Prayer before saying Amen.
As I was getting ready to head to the airport the next day, a woman came up to me and asked me if I had flown into Atlanta. I told her, yes, I had flown into Atlanta and driven first to Chattanooga for a couple of meetings and then to Nashville for this meeting. She said: “So you did Sherman’s March to the Sea in reverse.” I said: “Indeed. I did what General Sherman would have done if the Confederate forces had put up stiffer resistance to the Yankees in the War of Northern Aggression. Then the history of the US would have been quite different.”
It was then that she gave me that warm, all-encompassing smile that I have come to expect in the South.
And so, I rented a car at the airport and began my drive. The evening had come to a close. The road ahead was cloaked in darkness. There was plenty of traffic still on the Interstate. Maybe the folks in Atlanta worked long hours. Downtown loomed in the distance. First up was a tower on the right side, its name lit up proudly in glowing letters. It looked like the proverbial Tower of Power.
I was driving in the fast lane, moving with the flow of the traffic. About half an hour into the drive, a driver appeared behind me. He flashed his lights, once and then twice. Presumably that was a code for me to move aside. I had heard that such signaling was common on the Autobahns of Germany.
The car, a fire-engine red Chevy Camaro, was coming toward me fast and furious. I moved over to let him pass. The muscle car had personalised Ohio license plates which read: Riad. As I recalled from my frequent visits to Frankfurt, enroute to Riyadh, that was how the Germans spelled the name of the Saudi capital city.
The speeding driver continued to push several other drivers out of the fast lane until he found his match. As night fell, the two drivers had decided to play hide and seek at 80+ mph. On TV, this would have been entertaining to watch. But this was no The Dukes of Hazzard show. It was life or death on wheels, happening right in front of my eyes, threatening to suck me into the vortex. At some point, one of the drivers exited the freeway. The curtains fell on the show, mercifully.
Then there appeared a large billboard. “Jesus is Lord,” it said. But it was the byline that hit me: “And you know it.” Who was that reference to? Was it to me?
The freeway went past numerous battlefields and their inevitable end-result, cemeteries. Most of them seemed to date back to the Civil War. There was also an exit for an Indian mound. Later, I found out that it was a major historic site frequently visited by school children.
Finally, a sign appeared that would prove to be prophetic: “It was a rainy night in Georgia.” Within a few miles of the sign, a light rain began to fall.
I was now driving past Lookout Mountain and climbing across the Appalachian Trail. Traffic had thinned out and my mind began to wander toward the possibility of a flat tire and how would one get help were that to happen. Would I even get a cell phone connection here in the mountains to summon help?
As if to make the concept even more tangible, a semi tractor-trailer truck with a flat tire swung into view. He was being assisted by a repair crew in a pick-up truck that was parked diagonally across the back of the semi, intruding into the slow lane of the freeway to protect the repairman. Special equipment was being used to loosen the lug-nuts. Now I had seen everything and did not want to imagine any further what would happen to me if I had a flat. Fortunately, that just remained a gedanken (thought) experiment.
I turned on the radio. A Bible station came on. I kept changing stations but all I kept getting were Bible stations. So, I decided to stay with one where the dialogue was crisp and sharp
Two and a half hours after I had left the airport, Chattanooga swung into view. I drove past the Public Library and wondered what type of collections it had on the Civil War.
After all, Tennessee had been a proud member of the Confederacy and had been the site of a major battle. I imagined I was at the front desk, asking the aging clerk as to where I would find the Civil War collection. I could hear the clerk responding: “Excuse me, boy. Are you referring to the War of Northern Aggression?”
My hotel, stately on the outside, began to show its age as I entered my room. While it was capacious, the thermostat did not seem to do anything. The air conditioner and fan just kept on running regardless of how you set it. I just turned it off. It was just too noisy and windy.
The room had been super cooled when I entered it and was clearly wasting energy. But the lights were all compact fluorescents designed to save energy. Perhaps that was a vindication of the Law of Conservation of Energy. The bathtub had yellowish-green rings around the drain, deterring me from taking a bath to wash off the weariness that comes from a long day of travel. In the morning I discovered that I was standing in four-inch-deep water during the shower even though the drain was fully open.
The downtown had some interesting buildings.
After my work ended in Chattanooga, I got on the road again. This time I was heading toward Nashville, in the heart of Middle Tennessee. I had been told by a friend to be careful on the drive, since it was going to become mountainous and circuitous just a half hour out of Chattanooga. I recall riding an airport shuttle van one time on this road and seeing a semi running out of control on the decline section. At some point he decided to pull over into the wide grassy median and slammed on his brakes. We could see the smoke billowing from the tires. Our shuttle driver commented in the local accent and idiom: “He sure shut that dude down.”
That ejaculation was fresh in my memory as I got behind the wheel. Later, on Wikipedia, I would read that that stretch of road is regarded as one of the most dangerous in the country. The area is called Monteagle and that is where the highway crosses the Cumberland Plateau. While the 4-6%grade is not the steepest in the country, the slope is protracted and runs over several miles. The article said that “truckers are particularly vexed by Monteagle, and many had died going through this area.” It added: “Accidents and severe congestion are common here.” That tragic history had been immortalised by Johnny Cash.
There was more light on the road this time than the previous evening, because I had hit the road an hour before sunset. A friend had advised me before I left Chattanooga to check out the country music and to have a bottle of whiskey on his behalf. I knew that I would be unable to fulfill the latter request. But I knew I could listen to the country music for which the city was famous.
So, I turned on the radio. A Bible station came on. I kept changing stations but all I kept getting were Bible stations. So, I decided to stay with one where the dialogue was crisp and sharp. After all, we were talking about the Last Judgment and our ultimate and permanent placement in Heaven or Hell. A guest was on the show. He had authored a book, “Before Amen.” He was telling us that all the prayers in the Bible are one simple prayer. And then he proceeded to recite it.
He was asking us to pray to God, who we were told was our Heavenly Father. The pastor told us that he had three sons, and they could approach him anytime and ask a question or request help. He said, being their dad, he did not care in what style the question was asked as long as it was asked with humility.
A woman called and said that the Heavenly Father metaphor was not going to work for her since her dad was abusive. The pastor said to not let that hold her back since God was a congenial father. She replied, then why did He give me a less than congenial Dad for me on earth. A man called and said his prayers were not being heard. He was told to not lose patience and to keep on praying. He would be rewarded for his good intentions in the afterlife. Another person called and wondered if his prayers would make any difference, since God had predetermined just about everything in our life. He was told to keep asking the question even though it had no easy answer.
Finally, the exit arrived. Now I was just a mile from my hotel, according to the extremely helpful GPS device in the car. And then came a heavenly downpour. There was no other word for it. It blinded me and shook my beliefs in my ability to drive. All I could see in my rearview mirror, with some apprehension, was that I was merging into a long stream of headlights, all of which were coming straight toward me. A gap developed and I merged into the multi-lane road. I could now see the street I would have to take to get to the hotel. It was two traffic lights signs away. Doing my best not to miss it, in poor visibility, I ended up turning at the first light. The street signs were impossible to read in the rain. I had to wait for another gap to develop before I could turn at the second light. Finally, the gap developed, and I got back on the road, turned at the correct light, found the hotel, and parked. That was the end of the road. I had arrived. In one piece. It was nothing short of a miracle!
Compared to the weighty and open-ended conversations about God that I had encountered on the Road to Middle Tennessee, my presentation on entirely secular issues paled into insignificance. Of course, there was the occasional skeptic in the audience who questioned my assertions, sometimes with a vituperative tongue. It was during a couple of those tense exchanges that I heard myself whispering the Lord’s Prayer before saying Amen.
As I was getting ready to head to the airport the next day, a woman came up to me and asked me if I had flown into Atlanta. I told her, yes, I had flown into Atlanta and driven first to Chattanooga for a couple of meetings and then to Nashville for this meeting. She said: “So you did Sherman’s March to the Sea in reverse.” I said: “Indeed. I did what General Sherman would have done if the Confederate forces had put up stiffer resistance to the Yankees in the War of Northern Aggression. Then the history of the US would have been quite different.”
It was then that she gave me that warm, all-encompassing smile that I have come to expect in the South.