Do you think this one would be speechless? I think so, but only if the shoes could talk, too. How many people, places, stories, mistakes, victories, tears, peals of laughter do you think those shoes have collectively seen? It wonders me. A lonesome tree, on “the Loneliest Highway,” somehow irresistibly beckoning people to cast off and toss upward their footwear, and drive away unshod. Phenomenon? Yes. Lesson? Not sure… but...

Upon arrival in London many years ago, I was relieved to find that, as my clever roommate put it, “the streets came with instructions.” I did wonder, as I strolled those noisy thoroughfares, why the words were so widely sprawled upon the asphault. Consistently. On nearly every corner (and I think I counted twelve million corners).  I tried not to dwell too much on the events surmised by my imagination that surely caused...

or, A Lesson from the Airwaves. It struck me years ago, on a roadtrip with my mom. Somewhere in the day’s travels over hill and vale, via hairpin turns, the sporadic radio signal gave me a life lesson. Our ears were greeted intermittently by alternating music and white noise. I’m pretty sure we opted for silence after a while, giving up on the spotty airwaves. In the quiet, the thought came: The road winds, the terrain changes,...

No, not that kind of boot. Think…British. Yeah, that’s the one. What’s in your boot? Here’s my guess: Jumper cables Flashlight Snowchains, perhaps? Spare tire Trusty can of Fix-a-Flat… …and if you’re anything like me, artifacts from recent (or long past) road trips. Have you ever been caught without one of these things when you needed it? I was thinking last night (a dangerous...

Note: This is a re-run, from the archives…originally posted waaaay back in November 2010. Forgive the reprise, but I thought I’d post it again to kick off the February series, “Lessons from the Road.” Road trip yesterday. 3 am departure time, with approximately 5 hours to destination. I drove. There’s this thing I do when I encounter windy roads or low visibility or sheer drop-offs or even steep-slopey drop-offs. I sit...