April Fool’s Day was just a week away.
Many of the permanent members of the citizenry that used the general store as their headquarters for discovering what the society of the back woods had recently come up with, were meeting at the back of the store, not far from the soon slumbering but not yet moribund pot-bellied stove (still producing a bit of heat). One found both the Store-keeps (he with an unbuttered bagel and she with the remains of a Little Debbie), plus City-fella, the Postman, the Curmudgeon’s visiting cousin Barbra (spelled like the singer and not the song), and the area’s one staunch member of the Republican Old Guard, Dusty Bartram (years ago he had supported Barry Goldwater but had never flagged in this appraisal of Ronald Reagan – known to him as one of those lazy actors), and finally, Curmudgeon who had just returned from a golfing tournament located outside Ft. Bragg, on the edge of Fayetteville, or as Curmudgeon called it, Fayettenam!
“My God,” said Curmudgeon, “what a trip that was!”
“Why? What happened?” they asked in unison.
“Well, I wanted to get away from the daily grind of the maw of the press corps, being sickened unto an early death by the antics of Mr. Cruz, a man despised by the other 99 members of the Congress, and Mr. Trump, who someday I’ll tell you about my meeting the first Mrs. Trump, Ivana, a charming lady who was young but out of her league with her then new husband – ”
“You know Ivana Trump?” asked Mrs. Store-keep.
“Indeed, I did, back in the days when I worked as an art director at a Manhattan Studio that was a lot like the one found in TV’s ‘Mad Men.’ But that’s not a story for today because I have to continue with my story about driving to Fayettenam!”
The group was quiet in anticipation for just about the time it would take for a fly to dive bomb a cup of coffee in a paper cup, when Dusty Bartram said:
“I was once lost in Fayetteville, some twenty-five years ago when visiting my aged aunt Gwen who lived there in our old ancestral home not far from the Cape Fear River – but I won’t interrupt.”
“I began my trip at 6 a.m. having breakfasted on an English muffin and a cup of cocoa. First heading for I-40, that magic route created by the NCDOT in fervor of left over Eisenhower magic to secure a way down the mountain to the fabled land of Raleigh. The instructions said to take I-40 East until you turn off to I-85N for a few miles, then on to US-421 South towards Sanford for about 47 miles – which I did and noticed that the early morning traffic was not too bad. Upon reaching the exit to US-421 I was instructed by my directions provided by, among others, Map Quest and the AAA, to drive until reaching NC-87, a local road of no great charm for 31 miles, noting that I should be aware there might be road resurfacing delays south of Sanford. However, the instructions failed to notice a break in the NC-87 route which led me to take a poorly marked turnoff – not found on the accompanying map – that lead back to NC-87 going north instead of south – ”
“Had the sun come up yet?” asked City-fella.
“Yes!” exclaimed Curmudgeon, “and now the directions inferred that NC-87 became Ft. Bragg Boulevard but never said the road was actually the same. But when beginning the trek on the boulevard (a poorly used term) I was told to go down for 0.3 miles. At seven miles of traffic consisting of new cars with either army men drivers in tees or army women drivers in tees, all with the left arm out the open car window and dangling cigarettes, I finally stopped at a convenience store (another poorly chosen word) to find that the instructions were all wrong and I was still miles away from North Eastern Boulevard and the golf course down that way.”
“It wasn’t all that great down there years ago,” said Dusty in a quiet voice.
“So I drove over five hours just to get there and then had to drive to I-95 then north to the Oz Road known as I-40 then west against the setting sun to our little home in the valley, thus wasting a ten-hour day. I never did find the golf course but did learn that Fayetteville is surrounded by Fort Bragg, and if you ever want to visit an army town – without being conscripted to be there – never go to Cumberland County for any reason. Just stay home.”
“So, the trip was a washout – ” said Store-keep.
“It was a literal defeat for me – ” answered Curmudgeon, “but it kept my mind off of Ted Cruz (no relation to Tom Cruise) and Donald Trump (no relation to a trump card) along with their marvelous dialogue concerning impugning their various wives and their impressions of the American public – and just how much they can digest!”
So much for an upcoming April Fool’s Day.
Peter Loewer has written and illustrated more than twenty-five books on natural history over the past thirty years.