Close to Nowhere
• This is the first winter in four or five years that I’ve been able to enjoy heat.
For several previous winters (and summers) I couldn’t stand to be hot or to wear warm clothing. I guess I itched for five years. Standing in the sun in the summer was pretty bad. Warm clothing and heat in the winter were horrible.
And I loathe being cold!
But as much as I despise and detest cold weather, this year is totally different.
Tuesday morning, as I write this, I’m sitting here in an undershirt, a T-shirt (it’s Halloween, the shirt has a skull and dead trees and tombstones on the front), and a sweater. Plus a scarf around my neck. The back of my neck is always cold for some unknown reason.
I also have a shawl over my legs. Barry, the editor, calls the shawl my blanket. I’ve been wrapped up in it most of the summer.
Apparently, I don’t have good quality blood and one of the side effects is being cold all the time.
I am not happily anticipating winter, except for the fact that I can stand warm clothing and heat now.
And winter food is so nice. Chili, soup, cornbread. Yum!
• I also am pondering something else that’s taken place over the last four or five years.
I’ve driven Hwy. 7 between home and Holly Springs for a little over 30 years now. For many, many of those years you didn’t dare speed, because the Mississippi Highway Patrol would flat nab you and give you a ticket. I can testify to the fact that for many years the MHP gave lots of tickets out on that road.
Not only did I get tickets, it was rare to not see at least three people, sometimes more, a week getting tickets.
I often smiled with great pleasure when one of the big SUVs going to Ole Miss would zoom past me like I was an ant, and then a mile or so down the road that big SUV would be sitting on the side of the road with blue lights blinking behind it.
Now though, Hwy. 7 has turned into a race track. I learned my lesson in the early years and rarely drive over 60 going to and from town. And I get passed by everyone. They blow past me and make my car rock. Cars pull out in front of oncoming traffic with everyone driving 75-80 mph.
Where has the MHP gone? Why? My little black car and I need protection on that road!