off the highway

Press on.

That used to be my travel modus operandi.
I recall a six and a half hour drive with a four-year-old.
We zipped east to west on hot asphalt, green Midwestern fields a blur.
One bathroom stop.

In our hurry to arrive, what did we miss?

Older
Wiser
A new-found preference for learning over knowing
What’s my hurry?

---

We pulled off northbound I-65 and climbed 56 stairs — one for each year of Abe’s life.
Theodore Roosevelt laid the corner stone in 1909.
President Taft dedicated the monument in 1911.

Engraved above the pillars I read:

HERE
OVER THE LOG CABIN WHERE ABRAHAM LINCOLN WAS BORN
DESTINED TO PRESERVE THE UNION AND TO FREE THE SLAVE
A GRATEFUL PEOPLE HAVE DEDICATED THIS MEMORIAL
TO UNITY PEACE AND BROTHERHOOD AMONG THESE STATES

WITH MALICE TOWARD NONE WITH CHARITY FOR ALL

“What’s that quote from Einstein?” asked the Muse of Many Questions.

Thalia pulled out her folder to make sure she got it right. “A hundred times a day I remind myself that my life depends on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give, in measure as I have received, and am still receiving. And I found this one, too! From… George Leonard… who ummm…. wrote extensively about education and human potential. He said… The real juice of life, whether it be sweet or bitter, is to be found not nearly so much in the products of our efforts as in the process of living itself, in how it feels to be alive.”