Please drive this Uber over the edge of the Flat Earth.

I talked to him, not with him. But he seemed to like what I had to say. Encouraged, I continued.

The driver picked me up in his late model, cobalt blue Infiniti after my previous Uber driver had failed to find me, and then lighted into me for doing as he ordered in relocating to the opposite side of the street. The driver’s predecessor had called me a second time to browbeat me, which is when I decided, as the driver would say later, that “we wouldn’t be doing business today.”

I was happy to be doing business with the driver, though. He had a cool, easy way as he guided the nimble sedan through the Atlanta traffic and out into the highway, where he proceeded to change lanes at speed with the ease of a baseball player idly bouncing a ball off his bicep and into his palm. His car was immaculate, the leather giving off its rich, agrarian scent in the warm spring weather.

“You know, a part of me agrees with Trump, with this fake news and everything,” the driver said, talking into the rear-view mirror. “You know, I can understand why people have become so closed off. You can’t trust anything you read.”

I explained to him what I did for a living, how I used to be a newspaperman. How fake news is an unfortunate byproduct of a free press that’s limited by a crippled business model. That there isn’t enough time or manpower in most newsrooms to do the due diligence. 

The driver understood. I don’t know if he was just being a good businessman and looking to seek common ground, or if he was one of the few remaining Americans who don’t despise the media. He wore a Bob Marley t-shirt and a closely cropped head of hair. The driver was a veteran. He was quick to point out that the wars didn’t leave him scarred, but he felt as though the country had turned its back on members of the military. 

“It’s disheartening,” he said, “that you would ask someone to risk it all and then leave them out on the street. You’re telling me you can’t free up enough VA beds? That’s just wrong, man. That’s just wrong.”

Our talk turned to the state of American communities, on how we no longer communicate, on how corporate interests have usurped the interests of the people, the very life force of democracy in America. 

This was a man, I thought, who gets it. 

“It starts with conversations like this one,” he said. “Around dinner tables, community organizations. Churches. That’s how it’s going to change. People need to get it. Right now, they don’t get it. You get it. They’re all just sheep or cows with their heads down, one following the other. They’re happy. They’ve got their cell phones and their TV and their fake news. They’re happy. But you man, you get it. You’ve got to keep doing what you’re doing. You’ve got to keep having conversations like this. Keep doing what you’re doing. Keep talking”

He slowed to a crawl as we neared the far end of the Delta Terminal. I was morose, having to leave Georgia for the glow of the oil refineries along the Arthur Kill. But I was tired from covering another conference, and the thought of a cold beer on a comfortable suburban couch in the northeast was enough of a jolt to energize me for the remainder of the journey. In a few hours, I’d be breathing in the sour, smoggy air of the meadowlands. The terminal was looming into view.

“You ever watch any of this Flat Earth stuff,” he asked.

I froze, my foot hovering a half-inch above the landmine. The entire cab ride had been building toward this moment. I fumbled for words and the best I could come up with was, “No. Not familiar with it.” I told him he could let me out at the far end of the terminal. But he didn’t hear me, or chose not to.

“You know, I’ve been watching a bunch of these YouTube videos, and it really makes you question everything. Everything we’ve been lead to believe. You just can’t trust any of it. I …”

“Yeah, uh, not sure what you’re talking about. You can let me out here though.”

He stopped and I unlocked the door manually before he could hit the button. I stood behind the car, waiting for the trunk lid to open so I could bolt. It did, and I hoisted my burdens back to my shoulders. I turned to face him and shook his hand. This man was a veteran. He deserved my respect.

“I’m telling you, man. You need to check it out. A man such as yourself would appreciate it. We need more people to know what…”

“I’ll look into it when I get home.”

I turned and walked through the automatic doors into the terminal, relieved to be headed to the cynical northeast. 
 

Heartland heartbreak.

His tired eyes bobbed up and down in the rearview mirror of the taxi as he made conversation, his cab lurching through the heavy Chicago traffic. I felt no trace of concern. His gentle manipulation of the brake and accelerator spoke volumes about his experience behind the wheel. 

This man’s cab was an extension of himself. The interior was pristine. I lay draped across the back seat, fighting off sleep and trying to keep my muddy boots off the throw pillow that rested on the floor. He cracked and ate pistachios as we talked about marriage, efficient routes, and the history of the city.

I can’t recall his face, because I mostly stared at the back of his head while I was conscious. But his eyes stuck with me. Creases encircled them, and the pupils seemed almost nonexistent as they swam amid a watery, brown sea. Fine ribbons of red ran through the white parts. He was a man who didn’t sleep much.

He told me about how his career in marketing came to an abrupt end with the economic collapse that began in 2008. The cab was how he kept a roof over his head, and the heads of his wife and his 30-something daughter. He had no desire to go back to Pakistan, though. The heartland of America was now his home.

I drifted off as he feathered the brake and accelerator, sending us both toward O’Hare. In a semi-lucid sleep, I could feel the miles between me and home start to dissipate as the asphalt passed under his tires.

I woke when the cab began to inch through the airport traffic.

“Did you have a nice nap, Mr. Joe?”

As we neared departure, we talked more about marriage again. 

“It’s amazing how few years can completely change you perspective and values,” I said. “Marriage is the best thing that ever happened to me. I can’t even remember what it was like to be 25 anymore.”

“I had two sons,” he said. “I lost them both in a car accident not far from here five years ago. They would have been about your age now. Nothing in life prepares you for that kind of experience, that kind of sorrow.”

The creases around his eyes make sense to me now.

I had never been to Chicago, and the trip through the city was a whirlwind affair. I barely remember it. But I will never forget the cab driver. HIs heartland story was as American as it gets. He told me all there is to know about sorrow.
 

Navigating westward.

I don't have any tattoos. If I had one, it would be a compass. That's the Eagle Scout in me -- always orienteering, always wanting to know which way I'm headed. In the hands of a skilled operator, a compass can give you a pretty good idea of where you are. More important, it can get you where you want to be. Of all the cardinals, West is looking pretty good at the moment.

I'm working on a book and taking the writing work seriously for the first time. My goal is simple: to get the damn thing published before I turn 30. When my grandfather published his first book, he used the advance to take his wife and four kids on a summer-long road trip out west.

While they were able, my grandparents traveled the world. The understood the value of experience, the importance of living outside of your comfort zone. They understood it so well that they were willing to load four kids into a station wagon and take them camping in places like Yellowstone and Badlands National Park.

Advances aren't what they used to be. But if I sell this thing, Frances and I are heading westward. While I'd love to repeat that summer-long odyssey, neither of us has three months of vacation. For me, the allure of the American west has been the inherent contradiction of the hardness of the country and its beauty. Any time out west would be time well spent.

Maine.

Two consecutive weekends of traveling took their toll on blogging. But I'm back. Last weekend, my fiancée and I were in Maine hammering out some wedding details and procuring as much beer as possible from Allagash. We got engaged in Boothbay Harbor, and that's where our wedding will be in September.

It rained most of the weekend, but it didn't matter. Just having one sunny day on the rocky coastline where she said yes was enough.

For me, Maine is more than a place on a map. Its icy rivers flow throw my veins. Its one lonely syllable contains jagged coastlines, stands of hardwood and pine boughs, streams stained by browning pine needles to a tannic tea, snow and cold that steal the breath from your lungs, and wild blueberries on the opposite side of winter. 

Maine is a state of mind. Maine is a place in my heart. 

Remember the rickhouse.

As I write this, I'm sipping Willett's two-year rye -- the first juice they've distilled, aged and bottled start to finish on premises. It has the character of a rye whiskey five or six years its senior. This rye is one of three different bottles I brought back from Kentucky. 

My bachelor party was nothing short of amazing. My best man recapped our Four Roses barrel selection here. That was an experience I'll never forget. I'll also never forget the sense of clarity that the trip gave me.

It was as if I could see a clean divide through my life of what is and is not important. When you spend four days with three of your best friends, and you return home with sore abs from laughing, you know you're doing it right. That gift -- that experience -- is one for which I will forever be grateful.

Oddly enough, I was dreading opening this bottle of Willett. There are certainly rarer, pricier bottles out there. But this is one of the first bottles I've been lucky enough to get that can't be picked up at a local liquor store. There was also the sentimentality attached to it. If I drink it, and it's gone, will that feeling of clarity be gone too?

And then I remembered the rickhouses. Some twenty barrels deep. Some five stories high. There's plenty of good whiskey to come. This good bottle of Willett is for right here, right now.