"High Barometer"!

Traveling With Gonka
By my cousin,Chip Arpin

It was quite a TRIP to travel with Gonka. I was his official driver down south every winter. We expected to leave Wisconsin for Montgomery, Alabama, sometime after Christmas, but the actual day and hour depended on several important factors. Most important of these was the reading on the all-powerful...BAROMETER! We all learned to go into full alert at Gonka's forceful declaration of "HIGH BAROMETER"! This meant that the skies would be clear long enough for us to make our getaway.... provided of course that we left RIGHT NOW!   For such a kind, wise, and loving old gent, Gonka could get a little hyper at times.... especially during High Barometer periods! Of course he also got a bit edgy on certain occasions once we hit the road as well.

Once we left, it was important for the driver to obey the navigator down to the letter (driver = me......navigator commander in chief = Gonka!) "I usually take this route out of town" was translated by the smart driver as "Take this route out of town!!" If you didn't, and got stopped by a train, you were in for a long and tense wait!!  Now it was also important to drive the correct speed...not fast enough to get a ticket or an accident, but faster than everyone else!!....especially "those d___ trucks!!" Nothing upset Gonka more than diving in the "truck lane" (translation: the right lane) except of course actually getting PASSED by a truck. This was a very grave sin and could be punished in any number of ways, but was sure to earn his highest form of disrespect...the dreaded pronouncement: "This beats walkin’...but NOT BY MUCH!!!" Getting passed by too many cars, or a truck, or waiting for a train...getting caught in traffic.... especially after taking the wrong (not his) route, could all earn this bitter pronouncement.

I remember being in the right lane in heavy traffic once and FEELING Gonka's blood gradually coming to a full boil. What he didn’t know was that there was an exit on the right coming up and I needed to be in the right lane early due to all the traffic. It was hard to explain all these details to Gonka due to hearing and impatience problems. I really think he heard MUCH better if you were telling him what he wanted to hear.... but I digress. After about a mile of this right lane business Gonka just couldn't take getting passed by one more of those d___ trucks so he hit me on the leg and was commencing to chew me out good just as our exit finally came up. When he realized why I was in the truck lane I could tell he felt kinda bad...although he didn't really say so...he didn't have to. We were really connected that way. However, if he were driving, he would have just stayed in the passing lane until the exit came up, and then exited anyway with the expectation that everyone else get the heck out of his way! If they didn't it was probably because:

A) They were a bunch of farmers or worse yet midgets (please don’t let me forget the infamous midget story) or

B) They were just out driving around "looking for an accident".

Next I am going to go into the sacred process of picking a hotel, and the curious dance that would occur between check in and check out!