Long ago and far away, I worked for an agricultural supply and marketing organization operating in the two Carolinas. Most of my work centered around advertising and public relations and producing a monthly magazine similar to Progressive Farmer, as well as some smaller publications.
Because our facilities were spread out from Ahoskie in northeast N.C. to Waynesville in the western mountains and as far south as Walterboro, S.C., which is just next door to Savannah, Georgia, I spent considerable time traveling.
One of the benefits of that travel was getting to know the best local places to eat. I’ve always enjoyed putting my feet under the table and have consumed many a franchise cheeseburger or chicken leg, but the best places were and always will be the “mom and pop” places of the world.
So that I wouldn’t miss any of those places in whatever locale I found myself at meal time, I devised a system of signposts along the way. Some were written in a little notebook I carried while others were committed to memory, which at that time was not all that difficult. Those signposts consisted of various landmarks — an interstate exit, a certain shopping center or gas station or someone’s pasture fence or silo. The system hardly ever failed.
Since those days, however, as I have grown older, I have come to understand that I — indeed, all of us humans — spend a lot of time on the road.
And I don’t mean Interstate 95 or U.S. 64.
Rather, I mean the road of life. And just like those exit signs or silos, there are signposts along the way that tell us where we are. Births. Deaths. Marriages. Graduation. Promotions. New homes. Moving. Babies — our own and those wonderful creatures known as grandchildren. The list is seemingly endless.
Someone I know just reached one of those life signposts. And because he is, so am I.
I hesitate to call his name so as not to name him so I’ll just tell you he’s the first-born of my mother and father. And I won’t go into great detail about the signpost other than to say he and George Washington share a birthday. And the significant thing about the day is he’s 10 years older than me, and I was born in 1948.
There’s another one between us. Most of the time that one is being held captive in the frozen tundra of New Hampshire, a nod to his long-ago fondness for skiing ... and not the kind you do on water. Distance and other life matters keep us all from gathering as much as I’d like but it’s good when we do.
The good news is my oldest (can you do that when there are only two in the group, or would it be “older” but how do I do that since both of them are?) is only a few miles up the road from me. Or maybe I’m just a few miles down the road from him.
That proximity used to help us get together more than when he lived in Winston-Salem or Wilson or even Coleridge, hardly on the other side of Mars. But COVID-19 and its ugly tentacles put a damper of sorts on that, as it did for lots of folks. Hopefully, we’ll all live long enough to get over that and get back to what we used to do. In pre-mask days, we’d have breakfast together (I always get stuck with the check), share Sunday lunches and other special occasions, enjoy Thanksgiving with the extended family — usually the one time a year when all three of us are in one place — and a belated Christmas and such other times as we can.
Funny thing about signposts; they change. When I was 7, I made a quarter shining his shoes before he went on a date and I would then usually plead with my mother to “make” (one of her favorite strategies) him let me go with him.
Never happened.
Today, that 10-year difference has morphed into about 15 minutes as we both pretty much travel many of the same roads in interests and tastes. He tells me from time to time that folks ask him if he and I are related, and he always wants to know why they ask. On occasion, he says, some think maybe he’s me. I never apologize, just tell him to give them $20 or so.
Now, as our respective vehicles travel the roads of life, I hope there are many more signposts for us along the way ... for both of us, like when it’s my time for the one he’s having now.
Did I tell you, as the Hollies once sang, he ain’t heavy?
He’s my brother.
I love him.
Bob Wachs is a native of Chatham County and retired long-time managing editor of the Chatham News/Chatham Record, having written a weekly column for more than 30 years. During most of his time with the newspapers, he was also a bi-vocational pastor and today serves Bear Creek Baptist Church for the second time as pastor.