Holiday travel is taxing despite some interesting sights

A man who says he is willing to meet you halfway is usually a poor judge of distance.

- Laurence J. Peter

I don't mind spending time with family and friends over a holiday.

It's the traveling to get there that wears out the seat of my pants.

Even though the roads were great and the car was comfortable, I guess I'm just not much of a road person.

Maybe things will get better when they fully develop those television-telephones that foreign correspondents now use in Afghanistan.

Then I can just sit here and talk, and watch them while they talk back.

* * *

Of course, if I hadn't been traveling over the weekend, there are several things I wouldn't have seen.

Such as:

Two separate cars on fire while groups of people stood off to the side and watched sadly, unable to stop a thing.

Several vehicles with Georgia Tech flags flying proudly on their way to what would become Saturday night's disappointment.

More than a dozen dead deer.

A bumper sticker on an old truck that read: "Desired by women; feared by fish."

* * *

Actually, to break up the trip through Atlanta, I slipped off the interstate and took an early-morning cruise through the neighborhood in which I grew up 37 years ago.

You should try this sometime.

I hadn't seen it in years.

Everything seemed smaller, except the trees, which are now gigantic.

All the yards now have fences and many of the front doors have bars on them.

I turned around in a driveway in which I once played basketball and wondered what happened to all the other people who lived on the street and where they went and what they think if they ever come back.

* * *

TODAY'S JOKE: Here's one from Ruth Tewes.

It seems one day in the forest, some animals were discussing who among them was the most powerful.

"I am," said the hawk, "because I can fly and swoop down swiftly at my prey."

"That's nothing," said the mountain lion. "I am not only fleet, but I have powerful teeth and claws."

"I am the most powerful," said the skunk, "because with a flick of my tail, I can drive off the two of you."

Just then an enormous grizzly bear lumbered out of the forest and settled the debate by eating them all - hawk, lion and stinker.

Reach Bill Kirby at (706) 823-3344 or bkirby@augustachronicle.com.