(This summer, one of the things I want to work on is my writing skills. I figured one of the best ways to do that is to do some writing. So, I've decided to chronicle some of the notable events of my life and post them on the blog. if you have thoughts on how to improve my writing, please post a comment. Thanks!)
My junior year in college I planned to go to Campus Crusade’s
Spring break conference which was in Daytona Beach at that time. The plan was
for students from my campus in Eau Claire, Wisconsin to drive 3 hours south to
meet up with students from UW Madison to hop on a couple buses to get to
Florida.
I was with my friend Jon packing up to leave the Friday of Spring Break when the phone rang. It was Sandy, one of the staff from our campus. She explained to me that there was a Chinese student who signed up to come on the trip at the last minute, and because he signed up so late we did not have room on our bus for him so he needed to be driven to meet up with the group in LaCrosse, Wisconsin to get on their bus.
Sandy was asking if I would go along with her to drop the student off in LaCrosse, then we would meet up with our group in Madison. She just didn’t want to go alone with some guy she did not know. Trying to hide my reluctance on the phone, I told her that I’d be happy to drive with her. Once I hung up, I explained to Jon what was going on.
To be honest, Sandy kind of wierded me out and I felt uncomfortable being with her for such a long time. I asked Jon to pray for me that the time would be fun and that things wouldn’t be too akward during the trip. I also asked Jon to take my suitcase to Madison with him so I didn’t have to bother with it.
Sandy picked me up outside my dorm in her red Nissan Sentra. Once I got in, Sandy informed me that she wasn’t exactly sure where to pick this guy up. She had a hard time understanding him on the phone because of his thick accent. “It’s something like Roosevelt…or Rubberbelt…or Pattymelt…I’m not really sure,” she told me. She thought there might be a map of the city in her glove compartment, but all I found there was a large-scale map of the major freeways of the USA. Little did I know how handy that would be…
As this was the days before cell phones, we couldn’t just call someone for directions, so we stopped back at her apartment to call the student as well as some other staff to find out where to pick the guy up. Eventually, after some time and effort, we found him. He got in the backseat and we were on our way, a little behind schedule but not too far off.
LaCrosse is about 100 miles directly to the south of Eau Claire. Most of the trip is on 2-lane highway and not interstate. In these pre-Google map times, I’m not really sure what we used for directions. I imagine Sandy had talked with one of the CCC staff in LaCrosse to find out how to get there and where to meet the group. I definitely remember getting lost more than once on this leg of the trip and having to stop and ask for directions.
It also started to pour. Not a little, but sheets of rain fell from the sky as our little Nissan made its way southward. Our new Chinese friend slept soundly in the backseat as Sandy drove and I did my best to make conversation. Actually things were going better than I thought with Sandy. Perhaps God was answering Jon’s prayers. As we talked, the only other sound besides the rain was the “thump, thump” of the windshield wipers. Then, suddenly, the “thump, thump” stopped. Rain continued to pelt the windshield, but the wipers had suddenly stopped mid thump.
Now, I know absolutely nothing about car repair. For all I knew at this point, the car was totaled. Sandy was on it, thankfully. We pulled over, and she went into action. She popped the hood, got out, did something and got back in soaking wet. “I know how to repair one thing on this car, and that was it!” She said wiping her face. Wipers fixed, we continued on, thumping resumed.
It wasn’t long, though, before the wipers stopped mid-wipe once again. Actually it was only the driver’s side wiper that stopped this time. By now, we were really falling behind schedule. We did not have time to stop and try and fix the problem. Our solution was simple: Since I could see, I would work the steering wheel from the passenger side and she would work the pedals. So we forged on through the rain, me steering and her working the gas and brake pedals.
Once we got there, our turnaround time in LaCrosse was as fast as we could make it. We still had to get to Madison to catch up with our group. Waving goodbye to the Chinese student, we were off. By this time the rain had stopped so Sandy regained total control of her car. I was back to just trying to navigate and make conversation.
The trip from LaCrosse to Madison is about 2.5 hours, mostly on interstate, so this part of the trip went smoothly. At this point, we were running about 2 or 3 hours behind schedule, but without cell phones we had no way to contact our group to let them know we were on our way nonetheless.
Our rendezvous point in Madison was an apartment complex just south of the actual city limits. Driving in, we saw our friends’ cars so we knew we were at the right place. Like I said, we were pretty late at this point, but as we drove in we did not see the buses, so apparently they were running late as well. Good news for us, we thought.
Excited to reconnect with my friends, I ran up to the apartment where we would be meeting them. A little yellow Post-it greeted me stuck to the door. On it was written, “Dear Bob and Sandy. We are so sorry, but if you are reading this, we have already left.” Assuming it was a practical joke, I knocked in the door. No answer. So I knocked louder. Still silence on the other side. Behind me, the door to another apartment opened. A guy poked his head out and said, “You looking for the people in there? They left a couple hours ago.”As if to mock us in our tardiness, in the background their TV was showing Mtv live from Daytona Beach.
Hey Bob!
Love the story so far!
I'm not an expert writer by any means, and this is probably more a matter of personal opinion. But I think one of your biggest strengths that make you such a great speaker is how you're able to convey emotion through your words. It's harder to do through writing than speaking, but just a few tips to keep in mind:
Word choice - intentionally considering the emotional charges of different phrases you could use. How would you word it if you were telling the story rather than writing it?
Presentation - especially for things like blogs. Pictures/graphics can be helpful, and so can variety in your punctuation - semicolons, exclamation marks, ellipses, italics...
Hope that helps!!
Posted by: Jeromie Hamann | 06/23/2010 at 06:59 PM