By Holly Moore
SUWANEE, Ga. | This past week, on my way to visit my father in Ozark, Ala., I drove through a heavy thunderstorm. It brought to mind a stormy summer drive about 22 years ago with this same destination.
Moore
On a hot, muggy Sunday, I was taking my daughter, Melissa, to my parents for a weeklong stay. My mother had purchased an antique chest-of-drawers and old church pew from two local shops on a previous visit to our home. She wanted them for their 70-year-old home’s hallway but wasn’t sure how to get them there.
I assured her they would fit in my van. Concerned they wouldn’t, Mom countered she’d be glad to drive her truck to Atlanta and drive Melissa to her house. My mother used the old, small, red truck for hauling soil, manure and plants. It was, in my opinion, a glorified tin can on wheels.
I was loathe to imagine my mother and daughter traversing Interstate 85 through Atlanta in that truck so I determined that we’d fit both pieces and our luggage in my van…and we did. With Melissa sitting up front, chest and luggage in the rear and the pew, upside down on the back seat, we could just close the doors!
I love back roads. With the advent of GPS, trips are shorter but not as interesting. On this trip, going via I-85 to Tuskegee and Union Springs, onto Clio on State Route 51, we’d head southeast through Skipperville and into Ozark on SR 105.
Leaving Clio, we hit a gully washer – pounding rain, strong winds and lightning striking all around. In the distance, lightning struck a pine tree. Like a firecracker, the tree exploded. I was praying that a tree not fall on our car!
Almost immediately, we crested a hill and there, at the bottom, lay a large tree across the road. Slowing to a stop, we saw a car in the ditch. A man got out of the car, climbed over the tree and came up to my driver side window. I could see that he was wearing a black suit with a clerical collar. Rolling down the window, getting instantly soaked, I asked:”Are you okay?”
He was; he’d tried to go around the tree and was stuck. He introduced himself as the Rev. James Pitts, the pastor of Pea River Presbyterian Church in Clio, and said he’d been visiting a parishioner and was on his way home. I offered him a ride since I would be turning around.
As he locked his car, Melissa, who’d been sitting quietly, said, “Mom – where is he going to sit?”
I’d forgotten about the pew in the backseat!
The solution was for Melissa to scramble onto the upside-down pew and for me to drive very slowly. When Reverend Pitts heard that we hailed from Suwanee, Ga., he said he grew up in Norcross. We had been at our Norcross church that very morning! We discovered people we knew in common. Small world.
We were able to deliver Reverend Pitts to his home, and with a detour arrived safely at my parents’ home 30 minutes later. Both pieces of restored furniture still sit in the front hallway. Every time I see them, I remember our serendipitous drive in a scary storm.
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