Member-only story
A Few Days in Tuscaloosa
Southern hospitality in the bible belt
I’m a lucky man. I’ve been blessed with a good family, a loving partner, wonderful kids, and a rewarding career. I’m doing well in life and try not to take anything for granted but it feels weird to me to talk about it. To write about it. I’m not gloating, but I just want to remind myself just what truly a gilded life I lead.
I always think about my “blessings” when I travel, when this hunk of a metal plane picks up speed down the runway. I‘m not scared of flying but I dread take-offs and landings. I wait for the confirmation we lift off when my stomach drops, it’s over and I’m on my way, I think. I relax and ease the seat back a bit, soon I’ll be 30,000 feet in the air with nothing to catch me but gravity.
I’m on my way to Tuscaloosa to meet up with a partner and potential client. Three days and two nights in Alabama, a state I’ve only driven through once. I’m flying into Birmingham and then catching an Uber to Tuscaloosa, a place I’ve never been before.
I’m traveling more for work this year and it’s wearing on me more than ever. Travel for work is a young man’s game, or is the correct way to say it now, “a young person’s game?” I wonder. I used to love to travel and I still do, but I much prefer it without the pressure of being somewhere at a specific time.
