Seeing Red

Clifford is back. After an extended field trip to Mississippi, the big red truck is once again prowling the byways of Maryland. He's somewhat bruised. Rumor has it that he encountered several highway cones at a rate of speed that would have mauled a lesser vehicle. He emerged without a manufacturer's emblem on the grill and with a couple of black eyes. Other than that, he's fine. My intent was to wrap my friends in a cocoon of steel as they took supplies to our neighbors in Mississippi. The people involved are intact, so the accumulated dings of travel are well worth it.

Upon my friends' return, I learned that September is love bug season in the South. Whatever God put in the innards of those critters is unfazed by high pressure hoses at the local car wash. I think I will have to result to Brillo pads and elbow grease to remove the memorials to poorly directed flight that dot the landscape of Clifford's front end.

At this writing, I am once again sitting well above the road, listening to iPod tunes on the truck stereo, cutting back to 40-hour weeks, and enjoying the dips in temperatures that will eventually turn the trees into bright splashes of God's brush on this living landscape we inhabit. I really do love this time of year.