Twist and Shout

In my lifetime I’ve ridden and driven along roads that twisted and turned as the highways climbed or descended hills. Some were local and others throughout other places in America. Riding the school bus through high school I travelled steep Route 711. It was also called the Springfield Pike. Wintertime was always a challenge when it was ice and snow covered. Sometimes the Pike was covered in a heavy fog. One foggy evening my dad Carl Beck said, “If it wasn’t for the soda cans tossed out, we wouldn’t be able to see to get home.” One night actually I had t stick my head out of the side window, shine a flashlight down, and tell my dad to steer left or right.

Ore Mine Hill is also near my home. It was so winding my dad said he believed they paved it following a snake. It almost seemed the road was tracked the path of a serpent.

Kreinbrook Hill Road is very near. When a college classmate friend of my daughter Anna Prinkey visited, I drove them into Mt. Pleasant. She was from the flatlands near York, Pennsylvania. The descent was more than she could handle and she felt ill. I had to drive more slowly.

An extremely twisted road was going from Tennessee to Virginia. We were attending the World’s Fair in Knoxville and driving to Virginia Beach. Many of the turns were horseshoe shaped. The most remarkable thing I saw was there were mobile homes all along the road. I still wonder how they got there. The curves made us ill by the time we reached the top. “Whew, we made it,” I thought, then my stomach lurched…we had to go down the other side too.

A friend and I drove to visit our friends in North Carolina we got off the beaten track in West Virginia. Of course the road twisted as we climbed through the mountains. It was late in the evening, raining, and the combination of darkness and wet highway made the trip more difficult.

My travelling companion and I have difficulty with heights. Her problem came from an auto accident with head injuries. My uneasiness developed after having two episodes of disequilibrium. I wasn’t dizzy, but felt unbalanced. We were again driving back from our friends in North Carolina. She was in the driver’s seat and because the Blue Ridge Parkway was close, she wanted to see a waterfall along the way. We started and the beautiful vistas that opened up were soon swallowed by the near panic feelings we had and had to take the nearest exit missing the visit to the falls.