Great-grand Maddie Sanford and I left Jackson early on a bright Saturday morning, heading for Olive Hill, Tenn., where we would be welcomed as honored guests and would join up with daughter-in-law Gail. Then the three of us would motor on to Palestine, a suburb of Chicago for a visit with son Bob, who works there. “We’re driving the Natchez Trace,” I told Maddie when she and I pulled away from her house in Gluckstadt.
“I’m not sure how to get from your house and onto the Trace, but we’ll make it by the seat of our pants. I’m bragging a little, and my family might disagree, but I’m pretty good at that.”
“I can tell you how to get there.” A no-nonsense voice spoke from the back seat. “And it won’t be like you said, by the seat of our pants. I’ve got my cellphone.”
I heard vague mumbling sounds coming from the back, then a command.
“Turn left.”
Not sure if I heard wrong, or thought Maddie didn’t know what she was talking about, I had a different direction in mind, I veered right.
Let me level with y’all up front. I come from an old school and every now and then I have to remind myself of a few things. I guess the words knowledge and experience have different meanings for each of us; many rules have changed; new ones have emerged. When younger kinfolks are around a person my age, to them our opinions and words are not necessarily written in stone.
Different ground rules used to prevail when I was growing up. When my grandmother spoke, even though a few times I knew she was wrong, I had to act like she was right. Otherwise, my mouth might be washed out with soap.
Nowadays, sometimes the wisdom surrounding our revered, senior years, is overlooked. Also, truth to tell, not often, but occasionally some of us have to own up to the fact that we don’t always know whereof we speak.
Enough said.
Sometime later, and more than several miles on down the road, we hadn’t come across a Natchez Trace turn. “We’re supposed to see the reservoir and signs for Kosciusko,” I said, “Not Canton City Limits. Something’s wrong.”
“You turned right. I told you, left.”
I adjusted my hearing aids. “You didn’t say it loud enough.”
“I said left. I said it loud.”
“You sound like a broken record.”
“What’s a record?”
She then said something, and held up her cell phone.
“Sore ear?” I asked. “My ears aren’t sore.”
“No.” A deep sigh then, “She talks to me. Sore Ears told me which way to go. “
“You have to be kidding.”
“No. You need to do what we tell you. Then we’ll get there.”
“When it comes to directions, I guess you and I don’t exactly speak the same language.”
“We’ll help you anyway,” Maddie sighed.
“We? You and who? Sore Ears? I don’t see anybody else.”
There was mumbling from the back seat. “I’ll say it slower and louder,” Maddie said patiently.
I shook my head. “I still don’t understand you. Wait a minute.”
Everything comes with a remote control nowadays, but I had to pull over to the side of the road and push the volume control on my hearing aids to high.
Maddie cleared her throat. The name she called out sounded slightly different.
“Sherry?” I asked. “Are you listening to Sore Ears? Or Sherry?”
Another deep sigh from the back seat. “Neither one, Grand Lottie. I’ll talk loud, but you need to listen to what I tell you. My cellphone will help us, but I don’t think you understand her name.”
“Humph. Sore Ears and Sherry be darned,” I muttered. “That’s too much sugar for a dime.”
I must own up, though; a moment of truth came. With the directions Maddie and Sore Ears called out, she and a subdued senior citizen made it to the Trace.
