Asleep at the wheel

Lately, for one reason or another mostly connected with the annual farm family of the year selection, I have been traveling back and forth to Des Arc far more often than is usual for me. No offense to my friends in Des Arc but I have never particularly enjoyed the trip.
Lets face it, gentle readers, unless you are intimately concerned with the appearance of the rice and soybean crops, there isn’t much to look at along Highway 11 from I-40 to Highway 38. Much the same could be said for a trip of 50 miles or less in any direction from my Central Prairie County home, but then I didn’t move here for the scenery.
It’s just that, sometimes, I get to wishing that there would be something, actually just about anything, different to look at. Now, I am well aware that this spectacularly flat chunk of real estate is just peachy keen for growing things, like rice, that require sitting in water. Water is wonderful stuff and all, but its tendency to flow downhill makes it very difficult to keep in one place on ground that isn’t just about perfectly horizontal.
Some years ago, an actor friend of mine, upon first viewing the setting of my home, threw my own words back at me. My friend is a native of Oklahoma, and once, long ago, I had written a parody piece for a radio show in which my only comment about the portion of Oklahoma from which my friend hails was, “My God but this land is flat.” My friend let me know, in no uncertain terms, that I no longer had any room to talk about the terrain of his native state.
I had to admit he had a point. I did mention, however, that in order to have ever seen the plains of Central Oklahoma look as lushly verdant as the Grand Prairie of Arkansas in the summer, you would have had to have been alive in the Jurassic Period, and the plants you would have seen would mostly have been ferns.
As I said, my friend is an actor. It is in the nature of actors that they are primarily concerned with themselves, so his education in areas such as geologic history left something to be desired. My remark about the Jurassic Period and the ferns pretty much sailed right over his head.
And what does all this have to do with the boring drive from Hazen to Des Arc (or the other way around)? Not much.
Sorry about that. I got distracted. My ability to concentrate isn’t what it used to ... Oh, look! My shoe is untied.
Anyway, I really wish there was something about driving around the Grand Prairie to keep me awake. Granted, you probably won’t get into all that much trouble even if you do fall asleep and wander off the road, as long as you were traveling at a sane rate of speed to begin with. In most places, you wouldn’t even be in much danger of hitting a tree. There just aren’t that many of them within striking distance of the road. Of course, there are areas wherein there are water hazards, some of which include large reptiles, but those are rare.
In most places where rice levees become major topographical features, you at least can expect the occasional U.F.O. sighting. Not around here though. Then again, maybe that’s a good thing. Have you ever noticed that the appearance of the people who claim to have been abducted by aliens in space ships tends to leave you saying to yourself, “What in the world would space aliens want with you, anyway? I do hope you’re not truly representative of our species.”
Oh well, I suppose I could work on developing a deeper appreciation for a good looking stand of rice.