The Yeager Road Diaries: Hot summer nights

I was born on an American Air Force Base on the outskirts of London, England. May 7th, 1965. Immediately realizing that the stork dropped me off in the wrong location, I moved to correct that and took my mother with me (in case I got lonely). I touched down in Atlanta in 1968 and ever since I have, like a salmon to his spawning grounds, returned home... to Georgia.

I'm a Georgia boy, I guess I always will be, no matter where I roam... and I've roamed a bit. Should I ever leave this place and reside somewhere above the piedmont and beyond the black pines of my home, I will more than likely be known as That fellow from Georgia. My accent and farm-boy heritage will never allow me another indicator. And I'm ok with that.

In the wee hours of Sunday morning, something came up and I had to go into work. I mounted my ebon steed and drove the six or so miles to my place of business on the streetlight illuminated ribbon of Peachtree. The weather was warm and it was nearing last call for the Buckhead crowd. I preened a bit as I was eyed by a pair of Buckhead betties as they passed me and then slowed down for a second and third look. The driver's side window was down and the air conditioner was off and my mind drifted back to my youth.

When I was a teenager I used to drive the country roads of, then, rural Douglas County in a dark green 1969 Camaro. The windows would be rolled down to combat the heat that was ever present even in those hours between midnight and dawn. The strange chill of a wind that struggled between summer heat and midnight cold would whip at my hair and blow across my face as the car climbed past 70 on the two lane black-top. I had no destination, no origin. I only existed in that moment and that moment was pristine.

When I left the office it was after 3 am and I only had six miles to crawl home... but that same wind found me and stirred the cobwebs of my memories along with my hair. I drove the long way home.

Sometimes you need to drive the long way home.