Sweet Home Alabama
Last week I was out in Alabama with nothing to do. The project I traveled down for got postponed due to weather and by the time I heard the news I was already boarding the plane.
At that point, I figured I would get down there and figure out what to do for a few days until the weather cleared up. Maybe I’d visit a few customers, stop by our manufacturing plants, you know, make use of my time.
Well, my plans flew out the window the minute I crossed the border into sweet home Alabama, which was a 3-hour drive from Nashville, where I landed. Tennessee was nicely plowed and salted. Alabama, on the other hand, was patiently waiting for the sun to do the work. There wasn’t a grain of salt on any of those back country roads. My 3-hour drive took me 4 and a half.
Once I made it into town, all I wanted to do was grab dinner and get to my room, but nothing was open. No gas stations, no food places, no grocery stores. Nothing. And mind you, it was only 7 pm.
Luckily, the woman at the front desk of the hotel called around and found me a restaurant that was open for dinner. It was the only one in town and as soon as I sat down and ordered my food, they hung a sign on the window that read “closed due to weather”.
I slept well that night.
The next morning I felt like a kid again. Snow day! I looked out the window and no one was on the road. Everything was still covered in ice until about 2 pm when the sun finally started to thaw the town.
I found a local Starbucks that was open, so I did a bit a work from there. Really, I didn’t feel like doing a thing, so after finishing the bare minimum, I went back to my hotel to watch tv.
As I kicked back and flipped through the channels, I couldn’t find anything to watch. There nothing good on tv during the day. The only show that caught my eye was a BBC America 3-day marathon of “Planet Earth”. I could watch those documentaries for hours. Actually, that’s exactly what I did.
I got sucked into an episode on Africa. Especially a scene where they captured a male African Bullfrog saving thousands of tadpoles.
They were stuck in a shallow puddle made by the footprint of an elephant. The puddle threatened to boil the tadpoles alive under the hot sun.
Somehow this bullfrog recognized the situation, hopped over and dug a trench from the puddle to a larger pond. Then the tadpoles floated to safety.
How could a frog know what was necessary in that moment? My only explanation is that nature is inherently prepared for life.
Looking out my hotel window, I couldn’t help be recognize how fragile we are as human beings. Because there are plenty of times when we aren’t prepared and there’s nothing we can do about it. Especially when our inventions, systems, and infrastructure fail.
We’ve engineered our lives to the degree that we depend, almost completely, on all of the convenient things we’ve created. It’s a gift and a curse.
All I can say is that we’re blessed to be alive. And I’m grateful for all that we have. Seeing what can happen when it all breaks down really keeps things in perspective.
By Friday the project was back up and running, but I had already learned the lesson I needed.
Thanks, Alabama.
