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On the Road Again

August 29th, 2022 by Kenneth Abrahams

On the Road Again

Years ago, there was a performer, I believe his name was Scott Jones, who wrote a regular column for the National Campus Activities Programming Magazine where he would talk about his life on the road. Regularly, his pieces would have me laughing out loud. Whether it was discussing the “joys” of a cafeteria show as he worked to compete with the noise and distractions of people eating, or an article describing everything that he had lost on the road. For any of us that spent time on the road for work, we could easily relate. I just completed a 2-week 3,000-mile journey across a sizable chunk of the country and thought I would bring you along for the ride. My style is not as comedic as Mr. Jones, but you may find some of my observations interesting.

People talk about Massachusetts drivers being bad or crazy, trust me when I tell you, we have nothing on the people in West Virginia. Granted, they don’t have the congestion on the roadways or people leaning on their horns as we do here, but they do have roads that look like a whole series of snakes lying end to end and the speed limits are 70 mph. You really haven’t lived until you are on one of these roads with your hands white knuckled on the steering wheel, ducking in and out of walls of dense fog, only to see an 18-wheeler careening at you going 70 miles an hour! Trust me there is no risk of falling asleep at the wheel!

Leaving WV heading to Ohio, Waze took me on the scariest road I have ever been on. My first clue should have been the 2 signs that I passed saying “Road Not Suitable for Truck Travel.” This was a windy, backwoods, country road that was, in theory, a 2-lane road, although I have no idea how 2 cars could ever pass one another. Luckily in the 15+ miles I was on it, I never passed or saw another car.

I also passed a myriad of churches of all shapes and sizes. Some that looked like people’s homes with a small room attached, others a simple trailer or modular homes that had been towed in and set up for Sunday Service.  I don’t know about anyone else but seeing so many churches along those crazy roads had me singing “Jesus, take the wheel!”

Driving along you can’t help but notice that people live in the craziest structures! There were regular house, sure, but some were camping trailers that the owners had put foundations under to make them their permanent homes. Others were very simple structures with corrugated tin roofs on top. Imagine living there in a rainstorm! “Neighborhoods” often had a mix of dwelling styles; it was not uncommon in my travels to see beautiful newer brick homes next to a mobile home or a less well-maintained wooden structure. In a lot of the rural parts of the country, when buildings collapse, they just leave them where they fall and let nature retake the ground.  Sometimes, it was hard to determine which ones had fallen and which ones were being lived in.

All kidding aside, one of the great things that I noticed is that in many of the areas that I traveled people’s lives were less busy than what I am used to here. They talked a lot about spending time with family, playing games, and hanging out with friends. Nobody ever talked about the prices of their houses or cars, but there were a lot of conversations about community and people. Many of the jobs I worked in were small towns. It was almost like going down Main Street at Disney years ago when they had the small shops, the arcade, and the old-style movie theater. A number of people that I worked with also worked with their neighbors and had kids in the same schools. It was, in a word, nice.

I knew Nebraska was a big football state, but I had no idea how big volleyball was there. It is HUGE! One of the activities directors I worked with has a dual role as the head volleyball coach. I got to meet and work with a number of her players and they were awesome. Some of them were looking to play at the community college for 2 years before transferring to play at a 4-year school. At another school, they were talking about how excited they were that the volleyball season had begun and were talking about what time and channel the games were on.

Being on the road for 2 weeks is a long time. As I drove, I saw a number of pretty amazing things:

In WV, huge wind farms dotted the landscape. Keep in mind this is the heart of coal country. Just as I was wondering how they built these things, three oversized semis passed on the other side of the road, each carrying 1 huge wind turbine blade.

In Nebraska and Iowa, cornfields were also sprinkled with the huge wind turbines.

There are museums and halls of fame for almost everything. I passed the Iowa Aviation Museum, which is home to the Iowa Aviation Hall of Fame. The Hall of Heroes Superhero Museum. The National Football League Hall of Fame. The Boxing Hall of Fame. The College Football Hall of Fame. RV/MH Hall of Fame, that is the recreational vehicle and manufactured housing hall of fame. Countless county historical sites and a whole bevy of other airplane/air force museums. Although I didn’t have time to stop, there were many national parks and historic sites I also cruised past.

During my travels, I was talking to someone in my office as I was driving through Nebraska and they said it was a place that they had no interest in visiting. Whether it is Nebraska or other states in the Midwest, it is an area everyone should see once, especially if you live in the city. It might give people an appreciation for the food they eat. You can drive for hundreds of miles and see not much more than corn and soybean fields on either side of the vehicle. One of the schools that I worked at had several programs targeted at the agricultural industry, specifically fixing the equipment. We have farms near where I live, but nothing like these farms. One person that I worked with had a “small” farm, 255 acres and only 150 head of cattle. To me that sounds pretty big, but she said there was another student there with a 4,500-acre farm.

I could continue to talk about all the stuff I saw, the Trump 2024 banner, some of the biggest American Flags I have ever seen, the billboard advertising a Bill Engvall show for October of 2018, you can’t even blame COVID for that. The Truck repair place that, for advertising, had somehow gotten the cab of an 18-wheeler on top of two grain silos.

As always, it was the people that I ran into that made this trip interesting. So many wonderful stories collected over two weeks. A student from Idaho going to school in West Virginia with the goal of becoming an FBI agent or working for Homeland security. Another student that didn’t really like people but was working for Student activities and also worked at a recreation area dealing with the public. For the record she was awesome. Lots of stories of siblings and children, meeting a volleyball player at a school whose mom played for the same school. Getting recipes from folks for smoking meats and some great side dishes. It is always the folks that I meet that make these trips worthwhile. A lot of these locales aren’t on many people’s bucket lists, but they should be.

About the author

Ken Abrahams has been at FUN Enterprises, Inc. since day 1. Each year, he logs thousands of miles bringing fun to the masses. It is a pretty great way to make a living.

To find out more about the company go to our website www.funent.com you can also go to this link to sign up for our newsletter which comes out about 6 times a year https://funent.com/subscribe-to-the-funny-pages/.  Our newsletter will tell you more about the company and the products and services we offer as well as some games, things to do and the occasional cooking tip.