Too Much Driving

As much as I like road trips, I've probably driven my last one.  The route took my odometer up some 1880 miles over a week, traversing five states with two destination stops and two overnight motel rests.  My one-day behind the wheel capacity now seems to be a bit over 400 miles, considerably less than in my 20s when school took me from the East Coast to school in the midwest about twice a year.  If my sleep pattern as a Senior is interrupted in my own bed, the motel beds do not do much better.  

In some ways, long drives have gotten easier over three decades. GPS far outperforms maps and written turn directions. The Interstate Highway System is reasonably complete and sophisticated.  At each interchange there are separate signs for lodging, food, and gas to be found nearby.  At the end of the ramps, signs indicate which direction the driver needs to turn for the chosen service.  Smartphones have made setting up hotel reservations on short notice straightforward.  The gas stations have affiliated convenience stores for coffee and refreshments, sometimes more substantial food.  And all these places are economical, with gasoline costing less than at home and quick overnight motels less expensive than the places I booked for my intended destinations.

As I drove along the Interstates in Virginia's full north-south dimension and the eastern half of Tennessee's east-west dimension, there were places to stop such as state parks, wineries, or mini-historical sites, each providing brief rest to those who need to move on, though perhaps more of a destination to people who live near those places. 

Modern automotive advances also make these journeys easier.  My smartphone will read an audiobook as I drive or I can set Bluetooth to music.  Radios have channel selectors that find local stations.  Cruise control can be used for large sections of highway.  Speed limits have gotten higher.  Virginia made the scenery visible from the highway attractive.  TN and WV did not.

The drive sometimes has its hassles.  I like stopping at universities as the break option, visiting the bookstores, often purchasing a logo coffee mug.  I didn't do well this time, as we visited close to moving day and signs for visitor parking were few.  My long drives are always to some pre-determined attraction, this time Nashville and Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  This always raises an important element in the analysis.  Was the effort of getting there, whether a substantial time on the road or airport irritations, justified by the purpose of the trip?  For the western national parks it always is.  It usually is to visit an international attractions such as Niagara Falls or a unique city like Charleston.  Nashville and the Smokies seemed less so.  A lot of driving for a garish few blocks of loud country music and a park with limited geological uniqueness, to say nothing of the mostly annoying town that supports it. Parking provided by hotels, but something of a ripoff and ordeal when dealing with the municipalities.  I think of Gatlinburg as rural, but parking fees may keep the town afloat. I avoided the expensive flat rate lots.  In Nashville and in Gatlinburg, each city has automated parking validation by card, with a mechanism I delegated to my wife, as it was not obvious to me.  Meters were better.

Travel also brings you to people.  They were invariably pleasant.  Our weekend at the Park coincided with a national convention of Jeep owners, thousands of them, so I got to chat with a few briefly about their interests.  With the Grand Ole Opry I expected people wrapped in the Cross and the Flag.  While it attracted almost no people of darker complexion, and some Gospel elements were built into the music, the experience seemed less sectarian than I expected.  And The Hermitage, plantation of Andrew Jackson, offered much insight into the era and its economics, the estate required much walking.

While I considered driving all the way home from the park, about nine hours, safety concerns prevailed.  I left the final three and a half hours, much through populated areas, for the following morning.  I arrived home at mid-day, unpacked after some rest in my own bed, then picked up a few things I would need to make supper.  I'm tired.  

While I needed different scenery, which is what I got, the strain on me this time might have exceeded the benefits of the two destinations.  And my wife, as passenger with a chance to amuse herself with her cell phone for hours as I drove, did not seem to tolerate the travel very well either. She developed a fever, testing positive for Covid. Likely our last multiday drive.

On the Road

Full backpack, full duffle.  Extra tote bag.  Portable comforts of home while traveling along with some comforts not at arm's lengths at home.  It took nearly two days driving to arrive in Nashville, my first venture anywhere in Tennessee.  Very pleasant hotel with a treadmill more sophisticated than mine.  A breakfast buffet well above the economy hotel grab-and-go that I am used to.  And a pool, a slightly chilly experience for late summer in a southern destination.  Don't have these at home.  

Offsetting this, at home I have a fully functional laptop, cell phone, and most importantly car with readily accessible service the few times an urgency arises.  I have parking spaces where I need them.  My home bathrooms have every imaginable comfort.  Cars and electronics are designed to be portable over great distances.  The securities of home are not.

Travel serves as an adventure, exchanging some of the familiar with uncertainty, at the price of hassle.  Our travel industry has deprived us of some of this.  The hotels advertised at each exit have franchises at the exits I take to go home.  Fast food logos prompt our minds to their ads we saw on TV, The Convenience stores still seem regional.  My WaWa was replaced by a slightly different sometimes better Sheetz in the mid-Atlantic or by Weigel's which I first sampled in Tennessee.  They have a similar format but differ a bit on coffee dispensers and what type of travel food they will assemble for you.

Destinations always have something that prompts the trip.  Sometimes better weather.  For me, unique attractions and aspects of geography.  The people are recognizably distributed differently.  The Grand Ole Opry entertained with music I would not seek out at home, yet dominated by white Christian Nationalists who stay far more under the radar at home.

And within the recognizable populations, there are universities, some rather grand, that create their own diverse enclaves.

At the hotel, my car has a secure place to rest overnight.  The internet access could be better.  But I also have country music, a different expression of patriotism and religion, Halls of Fame for people who I don't think are that famous but have excelled in their niches, some history, some living vestiges of that history.  Worth the automotive and electronic inconveniences. 

Travel Week

Making a list and checking it twice.  Leaving on a road trip at mid-week.  Looked forward to it immensely as I juggled the travel options, let my wife select among them, and then made the hotel reservations just over a month ago.  No air travel, no car rental.  Just time on the highways with some diversions off the highways to places I've not visited before.  And wife at my side.  The challenge of exploration peaked quickly, then waned.  Doubts emerged.  Right places?  Enough time at each designated stop.  Best use of limited destination time?  I'm comfortable with what I have arranged.  Like most projects, the start comes with anticipation, the end with eagerness, but the middle drags.  I am emerging from that middle.

At the Brew HaHa, where I've not been for Sunday morning coffee in a very long time, I created a pre-travel checklist.  It fills most of a loose-leaf column.  Getting car optimal.  Not forgetting stuff.  Doing stuff that needs doing at home that cannot wait a week once overlooked.  Having devices charged with capacity to do additional charging at my destinations.  Having some recreation at hand, whether an ebook or audio book from the library or sketching pencils.  Having destinations pre-set on Waze.  Having enough cash.

Realistically, anything except my medicines and electronics that I forget to pack, or find that I really need, can be purchased.  Every town has a Walmart, a chain pharmacy, and regional convenience stores with gas stations.  If I neglect to wash my car, it wasn't cleaned before.  My exercise program scores close to 100% without special prompting, so the remaining stretch and treadmill sessions really do not need to have their own places on my checklist.

It is still vacation, one that I am looking forward to more than my spring getaway closer to home.  I feel more in need of a scenery change now.  Anxiety free is important.  So I devote the time it takes to drink a large mug of coffee to having this reliable pre-travel to-do list.  No items on it will travel with me.

Expensive Dining

My in-laws dined out once a year, on their anniversary.  They always went to the same restaurant, the most famous in their city at the time.  When I first met them, they had moved to the suburbs just past the city limits, while the restaurant established itself in the oldest district of the city near the waterfront.  My father-in-law disliked driving, which was a considerable imposition in that part of the city most of the time.  They took a taxi round trip.  We never knew what they ate.

As prosperous suburban people, we dine out more often, though far less than we once did.  As newlyweds, we lived in student housing, walking distance to oodles of places to eat owned by people who understood student budgets.  We sampled a coffee emporium before Starbucks existed, along witha place to get Soup & Make Your Own Sandwich, slightly more upscale nosh destinations for people like us with starter incomes.  And the city had the truly upscale, where we began our in-law's tradition of isolating our anniversary for a splurge.  

The restaurant industry did not ignore people like us.  Indeed, on my last trip to where our marriage started, those dining boutiques worthy of a small plate had become the fast food and casual dining found everywhere.  

As moderately high-wage earners with children to raise, eating out became more of an escape.  Our permanent home had pizza places, regional chains and national franchises, a few local places of modest cost when neither my wife nor I wanted to cook after a strenuous day at work.  None very expensive.  At about the same time, our regional hub city, about forty minutes drive with parking garages not too outrageous on weekends, became a nationally renowned restaurant destination.  Anniversaries, mostly there.  Weekend outings for downtown shopping included a dessert and coffee at a posh cafeteria with creative selections.  Birthdays sometimes there, sometimes mid-scale local.

Habits evolve.  Kids depart.  My interest in mastering my kitchen took hold.  Birthdays now extravagantly created by myself in a remodeled kitchen, served with elegance in the adjacent dining room.  Meal preparation shifted from chore to pleasure.  Dining out plummeted in frequency.  An occasional breakfast at one of several places, nearly all locally owned, became the escape.  Bill for one, rarely over $15 including tip.  During weekends on call, I would carve out part of a Sunday morning for a gluttonous but cheap breakfast buffet across from the medical center.  

Eventually, even anniversaries were prepared at home to the top of my skill, leaving travel as the main incentive for seeking restaurants.

Covid created a demarcation point.  Isolation rules changed restaurants from places where people gather to places where people acquire prepared meals to take home.  Pre-dating this, however, was the emergence of our mega supermarkets whose niches also included sections where shoppers can take home ready to eat meals, usually at a lower cost than restaurant take-out.  Covid also exposed the fragility of income.  People in the hospitality industry often earned minimum wages, supplemented by tips from diners.  These were now gone.  People confined to their homes ate their meals at their homes.  A lot of workers found themselves jobless.  Eventually the virus would run its course, allowing life as we knew it before to return, though not in the same way.

My restaurant experience had become very different.  Menu prices rose considerably.  Dinner for two at the places we would previously stop by on a whim, those family places, brought us a final tab about half again what we were used to.  As a financially secure person, I upped my tipping considerably, understanding the servers' circumstances.  Wages increased for a lot of reasons.  Legislatively, minimum wages rose.  Worker shortages, people who had been hurt by Covid effects on their employment shifted industries, led to further pay hikes that eventually become menu prices.  The content of the menus changed, as some supplies became less secure.  Chicken, abundant and economical, began to dominate menus.  Fish, my staple, appeared much less.  Even the price of a pizza rose, despite the national chains' focus on restraining operational costs through investment in efficiency.  I largely stopped going out for any meal other than breakfast, preferring what I could create at home each night.  That ultimately included anniversaries.

This year I had toyed with a few anniversary menus.  The date was an inconvenient one, midweek, following another event.  My wife suggested we return to an annual elaborate meal at an upscale place.  She chose one, and we went.  I had looked at the menu, which had suitable content.

This was not always an upscale dining place.  It had begun more than thirty years earlier as a nook on a side street of a major university where I attended a graduate program.  It sat a block from the law school, bookstore, library, and engineering complex. Its location put it comfortably separate from the many lunch trucks that lined a different part of the campus closer to its medical complex and dorms, where students often got their lunch.  Commuters taking the regional rail would have to pass it on the way to their labs or offices.  Occasionally, I would divert my usual route from my assigned parking garage to get a cinnamon roll on my way to the medical complex.  When our group hosted a visitor, our department chief would have a group of us take the visitor there for lunch.  Nice.  Reliable.  Not Extravagant.  And with a suitable competitor on the same block, which I preferred for that morning pastry indulgence.

The competitor no longer has its presence at the university.  This restaurant not only does, but has expanded to suburban satellites, including the location near me.  Our tab ran $139.  

Dining's expenditure takes many forms.  There's the food, selection, ambiance.  Who I dined with dominated all of these.  There is also a delegation of effort.  When I create an elegant meal, I like the effort.  And I could have been with the same beloved person.  I have selection as I design the menu.  My wife accepts what I choose. 

We arrived.  Easy drive to a suburban upscale shopping center.  I drive by frequently, as the dealer who services my car sits across the street and Costco where I purchase bifocals on alternate years has its complex around the corner.  This retail complex has stores in a row along its backbone with several free standing restaurant buildings, including ours, placed along the perimeter.  Parking is abundant and without fee.  We walked into the building, where the hostess confirmed our reservation.  A few other diners waited with us, though not a lot.  The restaurant's capacity far exceeded the current number of patrons.  Another person escorted us to our table, one placed in a room with a few other tables, though with ample space between them.  A large round table sat eight other diners, the only people other than us in that room.  A waiter introduced himself, a young man likely earning money to tide him over as he pursues a different career.  We read the menu, and placed our order.  The various items came in sequence.

To be fair, I could not duplicate what we ate from my kitchen.  The wines by glass, marked up above what we usually spend at a restaurant, would be accessible from my usual package store in whole bottles.  Beer was about the expected price and included unique selections from small regional craft breweries.  I had one of those, something I would not find elsewhere.  My wife ordered a cream soup.  That I could probably approximate.  Despite the pricey nature of the place, they did not offer us bread and butter.  In fact, they offered Bread and Butter for Two for $12 on their starter selections.  We each ordered the same entrée.  It came with a seared fillet of fish sitting atop a vegetables and Israeli couscous medley.  I could not duplicate this medley.  I've made this type of fish in the past.  It is very bony, and difficult to filet.   

I stopped ordering dessert a number of years ago as prices accelerated.  This time my wife wanted dessert, and we were splurging to be with each other.  She selected better than me.  Itemized bill:  What we ate $110, 3% surcharge so we pay the credit card issuer's fee while they get their money promptly, state tax, reasonably generous tip though not enough to get the waiter to the different career that he likely seeks.

Fewer diners.  More revenue per diner.  It seems Covid transformed dining out.  It forced us to eat from our own kitchens, which may have been a good consequence.  It raised the income of the worker, though at the price of fewer workers to serve fewer diners.  The national chains, often experiencing declines in patronage, once rescued the younger couples too tired to make dinner after a stressful work day.  Now we draw our second wind to make that dinner.  The respite from the home kitchen has shifted to celebratory, the few times people really want something they cannot duplicate for themselves.  We watch the Grand Chefs on FoodTV.  We mostly eat at home, with maybe a modicum of upgrades from those culinary masters on our screens.  More effort. More satisfaction. Less expense.

Learning Musaf

My turn on the Bimah at my present shul comes about three times every two months, estimated eighteen times a year, though I do not keep count.  The office manager or IT maven keeps electronic copies of the weekly Shabbos bulletin, so I could figure out how many by imposing on them.  Or I rarely deplete the electronic newsletter that comes from the congregation every Thursday evening, so if I really wanted to know how many times I take my turn leading something, I could figure it out.  Three events every two months seems a reasonable estimate.  In recent years my assignments have been to lead Shacharit, the Morning Prayer, and to take my turn when the synagogue's men chant the weekly Torah portion.  About three times a year, the Gabbai will invite me to chant the Haftarah.  In another era, I did a chapter of Esther, but discontinued that when I took a job that would not allow me to return to repeat my chapter the next morning.  And I've done a chapter of Ruth one time.  Nearly all are Shacharit and Torah presentations.

Some of these skills I learned for my Bar Mitzvah, tutored in a Cantillation Class with other Hebrew School boys, then private lessons with our Cantor, who also taught me shacharit.  At summer camp, I learned Torah reading, let the skill lapse for many years, then took it back up when I settled in my current home forty years ago.  I had also learned High Holy Day Torah reading, which has a separate melody.  Most years I have been one of the Torah readers, chanting the entire portion for that morning.

The Internet has largely replaced the private tutor.  While I can perform shacharit for Shabbos morning with no preparation, I periodically expand my repertoire.  Each time my turn arises, I select two, sometimes three, melodies that I did not use the previous times.  For Torah readings, I prefer to use the month's notice to learn one I've not done previously that has a length approaching the limits of my capacity.  All Torah Aliyot and Haftarot are now recorded online in a variety of places.  Leading the service can be taught from a number of Virtual Cantor sites that allow the learner to listen to and repeat segments of pretty much every service.  My Go-To when I want to upgrade my skill has been Mechon Hadar, a blend of Think Tank, Synagogue, and Academy run by two Conservative Rabbis in Manhattan.  

For all that I do, an invitation to lead Musaf has never been offered.  After 25 years with my current congregation, nobody ever asked me if I wanted this assignment, or even if I possessed the skill.  I don't.  I could.  Some months ago, I brought this oversight up to my friend who has the often unenviable task of guaranteeing that a man agree to lead each portion of the service on the next occasion, be it Shabbos or Festival.  As soon as I pointed out this oversight, he agreed to add me to the Musaf rotation.  I responded that I don't yet have the skill but will make an effort to acquire it later in the year.  That's now.

I know the format.  Words have a familiarity.  It's mainly a matter of the melodies.  Musaf comes in three sections.  First the Torah needs replacement in the Ark.  One introductory prayer, beginning in Aramaic, end in Hebrew.  Then a prayer for the Government recited in unison.  Next, a variable prayer, most weeks a Memorial Prayer.  Then Ashrei, then the Torah processional with two prayers.  Not hard to learn these.

Sermon next.  Then the challenging part.  An introductory Kaddish with a tricky tune.  Opening of the central prayer and closing of the central prayer I know.  Then a Kedushah which I am familiar.  Finally some more intense text that I will have to learn.  The morning ends with closing prayers that I already know.

Checked out the sites.  Mechon, JTS primarily.  Listened to the tunes, which are variations of what my congregation does.  JTS melodies are recorded by a professional cantor who I cannot duplicate.  So is much of  Mechon, but they have a woman who sings in a more lyrical way that I can duplicate.  That makes this project within reach.  And as I attend services, I can pay attention to the cantorial parts each week, then go home and practice.  Figure two months to learn this, which would take my debut to shortly after the Holy Days.  Definitely a project within reach.

Rationalizing Rejection

Some disheartening events.  One major betrayal, I think, or at best insensitivity by people who I expected to serve as my advocates.  My best work submitted and turned down.  What I thought was going to be outreach to my mind ended up being a pitch for a large bequest.  My own synagogue registers as less welcoming than six months ago.  No real damage from any of this.  In fact, some may have acted in my interest in an unappreciated way, helping me dodge a very big bullet in my later years, though in a manner that would have greatly impeded me professionally at mid-career.  With these, and more, I understand my role is to serve as a tool for the organizations that had not treated me the way I had anticipated.  I get it.  No inclination on my part to seek reprisal other than eliminating some places from the bequest section of my will.

In my younger, working years, I might have been more miffed by these events.  Now, in my senior years, financially secure, in reasonable health, with a stable supportive family, I am not dependent on the things I do being well-received, or even being treated the way I hoped I might have done better were somebody seeking my acceptance.  What is more difficult, though, is finding replacement acceptance.  Unlike a former POTUS who declares anyone who challenges him to be defective, I already know that the organizations these disappointing encounters represent are not inferior.  They just did not represent my aspirations well, nor apparently did those initiatives on my part mesh with theirs.  

I value my independence.  I could use these recent rebuffs as justification to turn inward, to never do anything bold to avoid rejection.  Even at an advanced age with ample personal resources, isolation as a surrogate for protection, does not appear an attractive path.  

A more difficult branch point would be one posed by Dear Therapist of The Atlantic.  Those submitting her summaries of their problems ask her how to get thems who done them wrong to change.  Her advice invariably follow a genre that you have to change.  The other option, that she rarely takes, would be to find different people accepting of who you already are.  I think that's a better way for me to proceed.

Writing a Short Story

My entry to Moment Magazine's Short Story Contest lost.  I thought it might be competitive, as did the ChatGPT review.  Then I reviewed, though not carefully read, the three that got published.  They had a subtlety that mine lacked.  Moreover, the writers were either pros, quasi-pros, or had experience with previously successful submissions.

My own writing tends more towards journalism and essay than creativity. With some experience, both what I submitted and what got chosen, I think I can give a second try.  They allow three months.  The 5000-word limit is more than ample.

Sometimes the winners gave a single story like spending a Christmas Eve shift as a homeless shelter volunteer.  The grand winner gave three stories, all set in the same place, marginally connected.

While I work at a disadvantage, there remains the challenge of creating a work of longer length and different style than my usual output.  This year I also have an automated editing program.  I should be able to assemble something more competitive by the deadline.

Skipping Services

Shuled out one more time.  Or really more wanting to avoid the place and its people.  It's not been my best experience of late/  Feeling imposed upon in some aspects, ignored or marginalized in others.  Moreover, I have something of relative importance to do there next shabbos assigned to me under less than my preferred circumstances.  Not stayed home on a Saturday morning in a while.  This time I pondered whether to drag myself there or give myself the shabbos off.

I looked at the program that comes to me passively online every Thursday.  Very long Torah reading, longest of the annual portions, though done with professionalism by our hired Cantor.  Rabbi away.  Ex-President, one who irritated me during his tenure, giving the sermon.  He doesn't give an inept presentation, though hardly worth the special trip.  Regulars doing most of the service, one always expertly, other two above threshold.  None creating an expectation of special.  Within standard, not a lot above or below.  At the end, announcement of birthdays.  Conduct of Saturday morning business would be an apt summary of my expectation.

Nothing inspiring, nothing challenging.  I would essentially be punching my Jewish clock.  Sitting politely.  Getting my weekly 10 ml of scotch when it's done.

Most weeks I feel more engaged.  Sometimes as participant, sometimes as admirer of what the Rabbi or his surrogate puts together.  An admirer of the talent of people who execute their portions especially well.  We have an impressive number of congregants who can do that.  We also have some who have not endeared themselves to me.  I also have encounters extraneous to shabbos that leave either a favorable or unfavorable impression.  Shabbos is about separation.  The impression does not always separate.  This week it does not, nor does it have another form of offsetting some unhappy recent vibes.

Take the weekend off.  Reset for the Board Meeting during the week, prepare my upcoming Torah reading so that I can be proficient for my turn next week.  Best alternative.