The Little Cabin by the Highway

When we moved into our current house, living on the same road as the school seemed to be a blessing, and I enjoyed getting home in under five minutes. We knew we’d have some school traffic, but that was okay, because I was teaching at the high school, and I would be in that traffic anyway.

Eight years later, there are six subdivisions (maybe more, I haven’t actually counted lately) on this same stretch of pavement. A large shopping center, including the largest Kroger in the entire state of Georgia, is opening soon, and the traffic has gone from sporadic to constant for most of the afternoon and evening. Nowadays takes longer to get out of the driveway in the morning than it used to take to get to school. My daughter’s room faces a new bypass, a four lane highway with a median, which came through about four years ago, and she’s had to use something like a fan for white noise so she can sleep ever since it opened. My son wants to ride a bicycle, as most teenagers do prior to learning how to drive, and while I want him to develop some independence, finding a time when he can venture out is problematic.

Yes, it is indeed time to move, but my daughter thinks we should keep this house as a summer home. “Our little cabin by the highway,” she sang gleefully at lunch. That’s an interesting thought, isn’t it? Most people want a get away near a lake in some mountains, but my kids are developing nostalgia for crowded roadways and the rattle and thunder of trucks passing all night long.