In My Mind I’m Going to Carolina

I am composing this email while the experience is still fresh in my mind.

 Yesterday and today, the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023, Judi and I drove from our family vacation in Fort Lauderdale back to our home in Maryland. We flew up I-95 which has to be the most temperamental highway in the country. Suddenly, the traffic stops in Jacksonville, and then again in Georgia, and then again in South Carolina and then it stops in North Carolina, until we got to Virginia. And then the traffic stopped us in our tracks once again. Just like that, the fifteen-hour trip required our sitting in the car for twenty hours. It may have something to do with the theory of relativity.

It would seem that all of my relatives and everyone they know up to six degrees of separation were traveling in exactly the same direction at the same time. But we arrived home, safe and sound. As I age, I become more grateful for every trip that brings me home with nothing broken or hurt.

It was a joy for me to drive through the South once again, especially South Carolina. The people in the gas stations call you “darlin” even though they never met you before you hand them your credit card. They serve grits at breakfast, and I did not realize how much I missed them. And Judi and I sat down for our New Year’s Eve dinner at Julia Belle’s restaurant in Florence for some southern style food, the only non-drive thru restaurant we could find. Julia and Belle’s granddaughter, who owns the joint, made sure to come by our table and say hello and share how she met her husband, who cooks in the back some 35 years ago and she married him because he grew up poor and learned how to create delicious flavors from nothing. People in Bethesda don’t talk to you very much. Everyone here is too busy.

But most of all, I was fascinated by the billboards, which I will categorize in four basic archetypes:

Billboard #1: Things that go boom.

It seems that guns, ammo and fireworks stores are major businesses off I-95. I don’t remember seeing these stores off the Massachusetts Turnpike in New England. But I am sure that bottle rockets and AR 15’s are not what James Taylor was singing about when he thought about going to Carolina.

Billboard #2: Food that I would never eat today.

Every third sign depicted a hamburger with bacon, cheese and mayo slathered all over it. Or little smiling pig faces beckoning the hungry family to come devour some barbeque. I bet the food is beyond delicious. I can rationalize that I wouldn’t ever eat the billboard food because of Jewish dietary reasons; or because I am weaning myself off of red meat which destroys the environment and my arteries. But the simplest truth is my 68-year-old body just cannot digest this food like my 18-year-old body once could. 50 years takes its toll. I did not see any billboards advertising organic cucumbers.

Billboard #3: Adult Superstores.

I have not spent time browsing around a sex shop, let alone an adult superstore. I know the difference between a Walmart and a Walmart Superstore. I cannot imagine what would differentiate a common and sundry sex store and an adult superstore. I probably will not find out either. But what I liked most of all were the stores’ names. The Lions’ Den. Huh? Someone has to explain that one to me. Or Adam and Eve. I realize that these Biblical folks (I assume that is the reference here—and they were not the present owner’s grandparents) were the first to engage in sexual relations. But I do not know why the name Adam and Eve would entice a traveler on I-95 to get off the road to sample their wares. To my knowledge, they got things going, by definition, the old-fashioned way. And as for the displays of lingerie, the fashions would not really compliment the people we met along I-95.

Billboard #4: Jesus.

Even though I am Jewish, I like Jesus.

Sandwiched between assault rifles, barbeque, and sexual paraphernalia were big, bright, yellow and red signs with Jesus’ name on it. Sometimes they just displayed “Jesus” in red, bold letters. Other signs included Jesus’ name with exhortations to repent. And some had messages like: Hell is waiting for those who don’t. Damnation. Eternal flames wait to torture your body and soul.

Friends, I am a religious guy. I am not looking to put down anybody else’s heartfelt beliefs or denigrate their faith journey. Believe what you want. It’s all good. But I wonder how many people have actually found faith through a yellow and red billboard. Or putting it a different way, selling faith through a billboard like one might hawk a sandwich or a roman candle, or whatever from the superstore—it seems to me that acquiring genuine faith that is worth something might require a little more investment than glancing at an interstate billboard message.

I love the South. So nice. So friendly. Makes my head spin.

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The rabbi’s wife, nowadays the rabbi’s husband in equal measure, bears much of the responsibility for the family. The rabbi’s spouse is both a heroic and tragic figure, often stoic and sometimes resentful of the responsibilities thrust upon them.

In my novel, still unpublished, Naomi Greenblatt loves her husband, Rabbi Tuvya. But she becomes less loving as the story unfolds. As Tuvya flails around trying just to survive, Naomi is caustic, angry, and protective of her family. She loves her children and her husband. But can their marriage weather the constant disappointment and pressure that Tuvya’s failing career imposes upon them? From the get-go, the reader is unsure.

I root for Naomi. I admire her strength and wisdom. I am sad for her disappointments. She deserves happiness. I guess we all do. But all happy all the time eludes everybody. She certainly deserves better than she has. Does she get it?

Please enjoy and stay tuned. Backwards and Forwards will appear, again, magically in your inbox in a few weeks. In the meantime, feel free to drop me a note at backwardsforwards.newsletter@gmail.com. If you know people who might appreciate Backwards and Forwards, please forward this to them and tell them to hit the SUBSCRIBE button. You can also go to https://jonathan-miller.net to view past newsletters or subscribe by adding your name and email address.

Whether we are going backwards or forwards, none of us is standing still. And successful people can move both forwards and backwards at the same time.

Until next time, shalom,

Jonathan