SHOULD HAVE TAKEN THE HIGHEST ROAD

DAY 12:  Well, after spending an extra month in Billings, Montana, because of that monumental storm cloud, I have come to realize that I’m not sure about what to do next.  I got a few thousand dollars in my wallet and in various and sundry other places around the Malibu.  I had easily cleared seven thousand dollars working for the Sheriff’s wife, Regina Anne Moffat Templeton, at the hospital.  No slight intended, but at first impression, I thought it was absolutely improbable that the Sheriff would be married to the Chief Operating Officer of the second largest hospital in Billings.  But, after I had been around them for a week or so, I found out that these two had known each other since they were small children, they were high school sweethearts, and had begun dating at an early age.  They were in fact two peas in a pod.  Just alike, they were ‘born to be together.’  And, their parents had been wealthy socialites, and so it was natural for their children to be together. 

A bit less formal was her nickname.  She was often referred to as ‘RamJet’ since her marriage to Johnson Everest Templeton, (or ‘JET,’ his initials).  It had a lot to do with the way she performed her duties at the hospital.  She was no slacker, and she could get through a list of the most formidable challenges at the hospital like no other.  In her high school and college years, she was a valedictorian, a debutante and a home coming queen.  All that being said, she was not your typical student though, she had a double major:  hospital management and medical science; and in so doing had graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of Montana.  She was not just a bright student, but she was a leader in every sense of the word.  She attracted people to her like a magnet.  She was ebullient, with a smile that could win anyone over to her side of an argument.  So, it was no surprise that she would end up with the city’s most notable athlete.  And, it was no surprise that she ended up in management at Billings’ second largest hospital. 

Johnson Everest Templeton was the biggest most brutally successful running back in Billings’ High School history.  He had played four years at his high school and had never gone a game that he didn’t run the ball in for a touchdown.  He had played in forty-nine high school football games and had scored ninety-four touchdowns, of which seventy-three of them had been rushing touchdowns.  He had led the district and the state two years running in his junior and senior years in rushing yardage, receiving touchdowns, rushing touchdowns and in total touchdowns scored.  He was big and strong, and he could run like the wind on the outside, and he could charge over any linebacker, cornerback or safety that got in his way on the inside.  And, it wasn’t that he got the ball on every play, he wasn’t a ball hog:  it was just that he had the ability to avoid being tackled until he had the ball in the end zone.  To say that he was ‘good’ was to understate the raw natural talent that he possessed.  He was the star, and everybody in Billings knew who he was.  Which was a decided advantage for the career he had chosen for the rest of his life.  He had played college football for the University of Montana, and was a star there for four years. 

He had signed a three year contract for $2.5 million a year to play for the Cleveland Browns, and in his rookie season had led the league in rushing yards and in rushing touchdowns.  But, after his first season, he had decided to end his football career because it wasn’t what he wanted to do with his life.  And, he would have quit but his agent had warned him about being in breach of his contract, and if he was going to quit, he would have to play a second year.  Then, after his second season, he could exit the contract.  And, so that is what the ‘Jet’ had done.  After a lack luster second season, the Browns were not entirely unhappy that he wanted out of his contract.  And, thus it had surprised nobody when he declined to play the third year of his contract to play professional football for the Browns.  He told the press that it had nothing to do with the team, but he had ambitions for his life that didn’t include football, and he was going home.  His agent was not happy, to say the least, because he was going to lose an agency fee of more than a quarter million dollars.  That was because his guy was turning down the four point five million dollar salary for the third year of his contract.  That hurt!!!!!  He was ready then to make use of his five year degree in criminal sciences.  He knew he could go to work for Sheriff, and that is what he intended to do.  Of course, getting use to a $25,000 a year salary as a novice law enforcement officer was going to be a lot more difficult.  He had been accustomed to $2.5 million he had earned in his first season and the $3.75 million he had earned in his second season.

The problem with Johnson Everest Templeton, was that he was never a slave to money, which was exactly why he was willing to join law enforcement at the age of 24 and work for a couple thousand dollars a month.  He was elected Sheriff at 29.  Now, it is true that a Sheriff’s salary was a lot better than a deputy’s salary, though it was still more like what he was paid weekly as a professional halfback for an NFL football team.  Actually, he had been paid $48,000 a week, so in reality he was making $72,000 annually, as the county sheriff.  There was a lot to be said for getting paid $48,000 a week, versus $1,500 a week as sheriff.  And, it was the reason he was still the Sheriff at the age of 39.  He was extremely insightful, he had Watson’s deductive reasoning capacity, had an incredible ability to read people, and could read body language.  He was a great judge of character and had an innate sense of the logic of the crime scene.  He had all the detective skills and the common-sense leadership ability that made it difficult to deny he was the best law enforcement officer in Billings, and maybe even in the State of Montana.  Colorado Springs, Colorado had its Detective Lieutenant Joe Kenda, but Billings had Sheriff Johnson Everest Templeton.  And, as far as Billings was concerned, he was best.

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I had second thoughts about driving away from Billings and my benefactors.  For some reason, the Sheriff and his wife had taken care of me while I had been in their fair city.  I almost turned around and went back at the first four exits I came to headed east on I-84.  I had an offer to continue working at the hospital for another month.  But, I was still three days away from home.

But, I was on my way again, heading to the southeast.  I would have to cross Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois and Kentucky to get back to Tennessee.   I had hoped that I wouldn’t have to deal with any more huge clouds and rainfalls in excess of two feet in depth.  I really thought that cloud was gone from my life, but for some reason I must have been following that cloud right down the line.  It had been four weeks, since that cloud had passed over Billings, Montana.  Four weeks!  How long can a cloud last?  For the answer to that question I would need to contact NOAA.  But, the short answer was that the cloud would dissipate over a few days, maybe a week.  But this cloud had lasted for over two and a half weeks, and though I didn’t know at the time, it had made it to the Kansas City, Kansas area.  Where it had dropped seventeen inches of rain in just six hours.  And, even though it was four weeks ahead of me, I hadn’t seen the last of its menace. 

That reality caught up to me as I entered the state of Kansas.  That’s really where the clear evidence of the Storm Cloud presence in this area was made manifest to me.  There were small lakes everywhere.  But even worse, there were trees down everywhere, and there was debris everywhere.  It was like a tornado had ripped through this area of the state.  The problem was that I kept seeing this evidence with every mounting mile I traveled through Kansas.  And, the further I went into Kansas the more I was seeing of the damage.  Then I began to see upturned cars along the side of the road, and in the ditches.  They were everywhere.  And, by the time I had crossed the last seventy miles of Kansas on I-70 before I reached Kansas City, I had seen more than a thousand vehicles upside down or down in the ditch. 

That was when I decided to call ‘JET’ to see if he could find out what had happened down here in the Kansas City, Kansas area.  It took him maybe ten minutes to call me back.  He said that the storm cloud that had kept me stuck in Billings, for eight days, had overflown Kansas and had dropped so much rain in that area that it had become small rivers on the freeway.  JET told me that Kansas had reported five F-4 tornados and 18 to 22 inches of rain.  The Tornado and the rivers created by the storm had wrecked   more than seven thousand vehicles in the area, and more than 1500 along the I-84 corridor.  This storm had been vicious.  It had deprived people of electricity in more than 227,000 homes through Kansas City all the way into Independence, Kansas.  This storm was vicious all the way to its end, which unfortunately seemed to happen over the Home of the Kansas City Royals baseball team.  The storm had brought 170 mile per hour winds into Kauffman Stadium and had destroyed thousands of seats, ripped down about two million dollars of electronic scoreboards and displays, and deposited more than 17 tons of debris onto the diamond.  Kauffman field was devastated. 

Transiting the Kansas City/Independence area took almost nine hours to cross the area which was about 25 miles of freeway.  There were areas of I-70 where the pavement had been ripped up and thrown hundreds of yards away; and parts of two overpasses were torn down by the extreme winds which fell across one or more lanes of I-70 down below.  It was a tragic storm front that set records for damage and destruction.  It severely punished the residents of the Kansas City / Independence area, and in its wake left more than a million people without a place to live. 

Yes, it took nearly nine hours to cross this devastated area of Kansas and Missouri, and the only good thing you could say about this area was that it was the last area the storm had hit.  Miraculously, the storm dissipated just short of the eastern boundary of Independence.  To every ones amazement there were no areas damaged beyond Independence.  For some reason, the storm lifted up just a tenth of a mile short of President Harry S Truman’s Library, and his home.  Had it been damaged or destroyed, it would have been the first Presidential Library ever harmed by severe storms or other acts of nature.

As I approached the downtown part of Kansas City driving about 30 miles per hour.  So, the red flashing lights I saw as I rounded a curve in the I-70 left startled me.  I thought I was in the clear and would soon be leaving the Kansas City, Kansas and Independence, Missouri area at least 60 miles per hour.  But, that is not how it came to be.  Right in front of me, using several Kansas City Police cruisers, was a roadblock.  Officers were out in the road waving orange pennants.  I came to an abrupt stop, and as an officer approached me, I rolled down my window.  He said to me, “How did you get on I-70 into Kansas City?” 

“Well, Officer,” I said, “I came off I-29 from Mound City and St. Joseph.  There was nothing preventing me from following I-29 into Kansas City.”

Then, the officer asked me to stay right where I was, and as I watched he went back to his cruiser, and began speaking into his microphone.  I couldn’t hear what he was saying.  After a few minutes he came back to my car, and told me he was going to have to escort me back to the last interchange, then he pointed to a bridge in the distance that crossed over the I-70.  It must have been 100 feet up in the air.  He said, “Sir, if you want to cross the river heading east, you will have to cross the river on that bridge.  If you will follow me I will get you to that bridge.”

I dutifully followed the police officer back up the I-70 on the lanes I had just used to get where I was.  After making several turns, he stopped in front of me and got out of his cruiser and walked back to my car.  He said, “This Bridge will take you across the Missouri River into Independence.  Once you cross the river just look for any sign that says ‘St. Louis.’  The river is out of its channel in many areas of Kansas City, but if you cross this bridge you will be able to continue on your way east.”

I thanked the officer for his assistance, and I asked him if he had a personalized business card.  He searched into his shirt pockets and quickly handed me a card.  I said, “Thank you Officer Noah.”  I thanked him again for his assistance and waved.  I rolled up my window and began to drive across the bridge.  I couldn’t believe his name.  And, as I thought back on this day and about this Officer I would have to make some conclusions.  Conclusions that would not necessarily make any sense, but in the absence of any evidence to the contrary seemed to have to be the right conclusion. 

I managed to find I-70 within just ten minutes, and was able to head on toward St. Louis, Missouri.  I hoped it would be my last night on the road at least that is what I hoped.  But, that cloud might still have a thing or two to say about that.  There weren’t many cars on the road, in fact I hadn’t seen another car for miles; and for sure I was the only car on the bridge.  No traffic whatsoever.  I guess that should have told me something, but at the time I didn’t give it a thought.  I was just hoping that the bridge wouldn’t fall down into the river 150 feet below, while I was on it.  I was really concerned about that because the further I went toward the middle of the bridge, the more it seemed to be swaying.  I decided to speed up and get to the other side of the river.  I must have been sweating a lot because I noticed when I got across the bridge that my shirt was wet with perspiration in several places, and the palms of my hands were wet.  It is nervousness, or nervous situations that cause this kind of sweating to take place.

I finally headed down the eastern slope of the approach to the bridge and back on to solid terra firma.  I was so happy to be off that bridge.  It was a scary ride to say the least.  From there, I drove as fast as I thought I could to the east.  I wanted to be away from the Kansas City area, and away from the huge cloud and the weather that it stirred up.  I think I would read later that this mega-cloud had dumped a record amount of rain across the Kansas City area.  It had dropped so much moisture, that the Missouri River had reached flood stage and as the flooding waters drained into the Kansas City area, the river had over flowed its banks by twenty-nine feet.  Which is the reason the freeway was flooded out and the policeman had to direct me to another way across the river.

As I crossed into Missouri, and passed the Harry S Truman Library, I began running through water that had collected on the surface of I-70.  The pooling of water seemed to be deeper and wider the further into Independence, Missouri I went.  It was just 3 miles into Independence that I began to see what was going on.  Every drain at the edge of the roads were gushing water.  And, everywhere there was a hill just off the road there was a waterfall just pouring off the hill.  As I looked ahead the road’s surface was heading down into a low place.  About the time I got to where I could see the truth of the situation, I had to slam on my brakes to stop.  Because, right across the I-70 was water so deep it would have swamped my Malibu and swept it downstream.  I slammed on my brakes and came to an abrupt stop.  I began to back up because water was still flowing into the shallow area.  As I backed up, I turned the car around and drove rapidly back to the first exit.  It was a good thing that I had stopped in time, the water in that shallow part of the road was at least six feet deep and getting deeper.  I had avoided disaster again.  I was able to follow an alternate route over much more elevated roads.  It took me two hours, but I finally reached the eastern side of Independence.  And, as I proceeded east, I was pleased to see that the sky was clearing up.  There was a beautiful shade of blue sky just to the east of my location.  I was so happy to see a clear sky with absolutely no clouds whatsoever.  And, thankfully, I saw no more rain for the rest of my journey home. 

 

Well, that is what happened to PaPa Mike on the twelfth day of his driving adventure across the United States.  It was a day full of anxiety.  I didn’t know almost the entire day if I was going to be able to get away from the Cloud and all the rain it dropped on the ground.  It sure made me nervous, but I finally got far enough to the east that I had outlasted that airborne blob of amorphous disastrous precipitation and general dreariness.  It had cast such a long, dark shadow over the land which stretched more than one thousand miles.  But you know Ginger, I outlasted that Cloud that overshadowed the land.  I kept following the plan that I had laid out days and weeks ahead of time.  And, I kept following my dream with great determination until I made it through all the hardships that it poured out on me and everyone else.  Obstacles in life, including this great Storm Cloud, kept coming at me, but they never came at me so fast that I couldn’t fend them off.  And, I thought that as long as I remained faithful to my goals, that I would still obtain them eventually.  And, that is exactly what I did.

 

 

 

But here is my “moral of the story.”  This is what I think you should understand about the events of the last few days.  Clouds fly over our heads just about every day we are alive.  These Clouds darken the sky and if we let them, they can artificially darken your life.  But, there are other kinds of clouds that send troubles into our lives.  They don’t fly overhead.  These are the dark times in life where things happen that cause us to be sad, or cause us to doubt, or cause us physical or emotional distress.  For instance, when you are dating someone you really like, but that person decides they want to be with someone else.  Well, it is easy to let that cause emotional distress.  It is hard to accept that you are not wanted by that person.  The fact is that you will find that there is someone else that you are intended to be with.  You have to trust that this is so. 

These are the tests that life challenges us with. In your life, there will be personal problems, financial problems, work problems.  These things will happen.  But, we can keep a happy outlook on life and instead of letting the stress these things cause get you down, you can let it inspire you to look ahead of these issues that cloud our minds.  Keep in mind, that you don’t have to let these things interfere with your life’s goals and/or your attitude toward life.  (You are an individual, and you can live life all by yourself if you want to.  You have within you everything you need to live it your way and on your own.  They are all fleeting instances that just remind us what we are facing in life.   But, we know we are strong enough to handle anything that can come our way.   We are not helpless, we have a built in internal desire to live, and to succeed.  To help ourselves, we have a survival instinct, but we also have a built in desire to help others.  As the song lyrics say:  “when you walk through a storm, hold your head up high, and don’t be afraid.  You see, just as clouds come in the sky, and are overhead for a time, they also move away and are gone.  So it is with the clouds of life.  They come, impact our lives and then move on. 

If you set a purpose for your life, and keep it in the forefront of your thinking, then when these trials come, you have a purpose to guide you to a time and place beyond it. 

 

This is what Traveling Papa Mike wants you to understand:  Bad things can happen to anyone, and the rain falls on the just equally with the unjust, but the Best Things happen to people who find reasons to overcome the bad things.  As many say, “If this world sends you lemons, don’t let their juice make you bitter, instead add your sweetness to that lemon juice and make LEMON ADE.”  Don’t let this world bring you down, challenge yourself to find the good that exists in all things.  You will always be happy, and you will always have friends.  Friends will gravitate to you because you have that smile on your face and because you are a happy person who has things to do (purpose) and because you can overcome the bitterness of all the lemons that life sends your way (motivation).  And, always carry that smile easily on your face.  So the Bible says, “Let your light so shine among men, that they may see your good works.”  Why, because, whether we know it or not, we always seek the light (understanding), and avoid the darkness (ignorance).  Because, who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men.  The Shadow knows.  And, that is why we avoid dark places.  Why because evil lives in the darkness where it is hard to see.   Light attracts others, so if you are happy, it will cause you to project a light that others will see.  They will follow your light wherever you go.  Why, because they want to know what keeps you so happy, and so optimistic.  This is what makes you a leader, and not a follower.