Our excellent adventure gets off to shaky start
Trump not only was honored with `lie of the year,' but he also was runner-up
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It was a prolonged and excruciating traffic jam as we tried to escape Connecticut on Wednesday morning.
"Dave and Ken's Excellent Adventure" was off to a clunker of a start.
I grew up in Connecticut.
Even 40 years ago, the plan was to leave before sunrise to beat the New York City rush hour traffic.
That was the plan Wednesday when we pulled out of my brother's driveway at 6 a.m. only to see traffic slow to a 10-mile-per-hour crawl on the Merritt Parkway.
Then it stopped.
Occasionally, we accelerated to 20 or so, only to stop again.
Siri told me before I left I would be crossing the Hudson River in one hour. It took two and a half hours. I expected our drive to Richmond, Va. to take seven hours, it took nine.
What was surprising was how fast the time went.
There was no anxiety, to worries, just a sea of red taillights - at first - and then a brilliant December day.
Our adventure had begun.
I haven't made the trip through the I-95 corridor in decades and things had changed.
The new Tappan Zee Bridge - yeah, I know it has a different name - is a sprawling modern engineering feat with five autobahn-like lanes.
The Garden State Parkway no longer has tollbooths every five miles thanks to the innovation of E-ZPass.
The New Jersey Turnpike is not nearly as frightening as it used to be now that there is an express lane for cars only.
And most importantly, I did not need a Rand McNally Atlas - although I did have one - to navigate around Baltimore and Washington, D.C. - I had Siri.
During those nine hours, I thought about those early trips to college in Kentucky when there were equal parts angst and excitement.
When I left in 1977, I did not know who I was or where I might land.
By the time I made the last trip, I had a college degree, a career path, and there was a girl.
It was on one of those drives to Kentucky that the girl and I had that "When Harry Met Sally" moment while driving in the dark across West Virginia.
We connected, and while it didn't happen right away, we never looked at each other the same again.
So while that traffic was annoying, It did not ruin our day.
My brother and I are both retired, although Sophie is still in her prime, and there was nowhere we had to be at the end of the day.
We were relaxed and the long drive did not wear me down.
Maybe it was the excitement of the trip ahead, the possibility for adventure, the adrenaline of all that traffic, but I still had energy nine hours later.
While I thought about some of those formative trips from the past, my brother and I talked easily, often about the things only brothers can know. That has not always been the case, but it has been this trip.
And when we pulled into a rest area in New Jersey, I could not wrap my arms around the fact that New Jersey still demands gas station attendants due to a law that dates back to 1949.
That one act - refilling the tank - reminded me of the that first family vacation to the Outer Banks of North Carolina a half-century ago.
"Fill, it up, Regular," my father told the attendant.
I reminded my brother that for years he thought the attendant's name was "Regular."
It was a part of the journey I did not expect.
The memories.
I was looking for answers about the future, not reminders about how I got here.
We spent Thursday at the American Civil War Museum and then the Petersburg National Battlefield. Its been 20 years since our last Civil War tour. It seemed longer.
My brother lamented later that evening he didn't feel like he learned anything new from the museum. After a lifetime of museums and battlefields, well, he kind of knew most of it.
But more knowledge was not the intent of this journey either.
Then there was Sophie the dog.
I brought her bed along to provide her the ultimate in backseat luxury, but maybe I was more concerned with my ability to care for her, my own ability to be her dad. After all, she was Gillian's dog.
I kept going back to the car to check on her.
We're just 650 miles into our trip with another 1,000 or so to go.
There is plenty more time to think.
To remember.
To consider what the future holds.
The car has a full tank of gas and we're ready to head west Friday.
I'm excited and I don't know why.
Lie of the year
Not only did Politifact honor Donald Trump with its lie of the year, apparently it honored hime with the runner-up prize as well.
The more important question is how so many people were so easily bamboozled by someone who belongs in the Lying Hall of Fame.
During the Sept. 10 presidential debate, Trump said, "In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what’s happening in our country. And it’s a shame.”
Politifact explained that by the time Trump uttered this claim, it had already been debunked by local officials in Springfield, Ohio.
The Poynter Institute's Tom Jones interviewed PolitiFact editor-in-chief Katie Sanders about the Lie of the Year choice.
"We went with `they’re eating the pets' for several reasons: It was ridiculous and widely debunked before Trump said it on the campaign’s biggest stage. And when Trump and Vance were challenged, they offered weak defenses about just sharing what they heard, even as GOP allies in the community begged them to stop. Trump continued sharing the story on the campaign trail as he built support for mass deportations. The city of Springfield experienced bomb threats, school closures and general harassment in the days after the debate."
That's the thing we all should remember.
Lying is not a harmless pasttime. It has consequences when people in positions of power say them.
Trump was also part of the runner-up for Lie of the Year after he claimed the Biden administration was stealing $1 billion in hurricane relief money from FEMA to give to illegal migrants.
This is the next president of the United States. The liar-in-chief.
Dog packing
Over the years, Sophie has only made one road trip with us, but Gillian was prepared.
While cleaning out a closet, I found a floral doggie backpack that includes plastic pop-up water and eating dishes, small garbage bags to put your dog's business in as well as the requisite plastic gloves to handle the business.
It's everything you need to take your dog on the road. My only problem is that I keep forgetting to take the bag with me when I walk Sophie.
Sophie pooped three times on Thursday - it seemed excessive, but I've never monitored her output before - and two of three times I had left the bag in the car. The final time, I was really far away from the car and I really don't want to tell you how I solved that problem.
I suppose it will get better as we keep traveling and I learn to be more prepared.
Ken Tingley spent more than four decades working in small community newspapers in upstate New York. Since retirement in 2020 he has written three books and is currently adapting his second book "The Last American Newspaper" into a play. He currently lives in Queensbury, N.Y.
Perhaps the excitement is because the little boy(s) is(are) still in there—the inner child. Years ago a friend said to me, “Shuler, you’re never gonna grow up.” I took it as a compliment.
Ken, never lose the excitement, and continue to share it with us!
What do we do??? Hopefully the North Country will rally around Paula Collins and get a democrat back in Washington to represent us. I've sent an email to the DNC URGING them to support her and send money and resources for a solid "fight" in the North Country. My research is showing that Nancy Pelosi is still" running the show"..sooo we need to barrage her with emails telling her to back off...we may be in the North Country of New YOrk, but we're not out of the "running"..