Taking A Walk

by Dwayne Phillips

I walked six days a week for much of the time. Monday through Friday had one set of traffic and activity. Saturday was different – vastly different.

Since Saturday comes every week, you would think that I would know that a day was Saturday and be prepared for it. Wrong – Saturday always surprised me. I knew it was Saturday as my watch has a little day-of-the-week display and I had planned my movements from motel to motel around the days of the week. I would start walking on Saturday, see different patterns of behavior about me, and wonder what was wrong with all those people on the road and in the towns. It finally hit me mid-morning; Oh, today is Saturday!

We were walking through the city of Cleveland, Tennessee on one Saturday. Route 11 had become a large, four-lane roadway. Three things were obvious: traffic, traffic, and traffic. It isn’t so much the traffic on the road you notice as the traffic in the parking lots. People shop and run errands on Saturday. In and out of this parking lot on the way to the next parking lot. People don’t seem to realize they are in a parking lot as they drive as fast as they drive on the road. Why is it that people drive so fast in parking lots?

Most of the Saturdays I was walking in rural areas outside of town. I could tell what time of day it was by the flow of traffic. In the morning, people were driving to the nearest big town – where the stores are. In the afternoon, people were driving away from the nearest town – shopping done, go home.

The thing that characterized Saturday in the rural areas was the amount of traffic. The number of vehicles on the road at least tripled. Country folk go to town on Saturday. That is a stereotype, but one of the more true stereotypes I have ever heard.

Another characteristic of Saturdays in rural areas was the type of vehicle on the road. During the week, work vehicles own the road. Pickup trucks with large tool boxes and ladders. larger trucks with arc welders, acetylene tanks, and air compressors, logging trucks (especially in Alabama and Mississippi), and dump trucks. Most of these work vehicles disappeared on Saturday to be replaced by cars driven by women. (No jokes here about women drivers.)

I didn’t like Saturday traffic. There was just too much of it. In addition, Saturday drivers didn’t adjust as well to some guy walking down the side of Route 11 while wearing a Tilley hat and a backpack.