Embracing the moment

By Jeff Becraft

 

Our youngest daughter, Hannah, doesn’t like to eat at chain restaurants.  She likes to eat at local restaurants to get the local culture.

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I had the opportunity to speak at a camp out in boogah cheetah in Arkansas… where poison ivy is the state plant and it is copperhead central.

I go with a children’s home from North Carolina. It is a privilege to go anywhere with this crew. In fact, there are a lot of principles that we implemented in Youth Corps that came from this group. We had a three-vehicle caravan and they let me ride in the passenger seat of the lead truck.  (Since I am old and grumpy, I told them I needed to be able to move my legs around on this all-day trip. I am definitely a high-maintenance passenger… but that is an email all by itself.)

One of my greatest concerns on a trip like this is that I don’t want to be the one to slow down the caravan because I have to use the bathhouse… so I tell everyone else to stay well hydrated.

Our first gas/bathhouse stop after breakfast was triggered by a phone call from one of the other vehicles that said they needed gas. We pull off at the next exit. This is in Nashville. Never mind that we passed all the truck stops on the interstate before we hit Nashville that had easy on and off.

We wind around through streets and traffic and come to a local gas station. All of us pile out. The women’s room is not working. So all 19 of us are in line to use the men’s room… which is a single engine unit. One student is feeling sick and so one of the staff pulls the trash can out of the bathhouse and sticks it on the floor of the store part of the gas station in case she has to yang.

It was a cultural experience in the local flavor.

Later in the day, shortly after we had crossed the Mississippi River, we get another phone call from one of the vehicles in the back that they needed gas. Our driver says he will pull over at the next exit. I am looking over my shoulder out the window at the big, shiny Pilot truck stop that we had just passed and scratching my head.

At the next exit was like something out of an old western movie. There were three local gas stations. The one on the far left doesn’t even have any lights on inside but it is still open. It only has two gas pumps and neither one of them could take the first credit card. All three gas stations were similar. And each had bathhouses that were single engine units.

I began to put the pieces together… this was how this caravan rolled. Why stop at a big, shiny Pilot or Love’s truck stop? They all look the same all over the country. What kind of cultural experience is that?

We were on the Heritage Trail tour of local gas stations.

There were other gas stations on the Heritage Trail and other stories… but you get the idea.

During the entire tour… all the way out and all the way back… (at one stop at a local gas station, it actually had multiple engines in the bathhouse and I actually had a choice as to which one I would use…), no one complained. People embraced the experience, embraced the moment, and embraced one another.

And the caravan kept rolling. The week in Arkansas was a phenomenal camp.

I wonder how many things in life would go differently if we changed our perspective, embraced the experience and enjoyed one another.

 

Jeff Becraft is the Director Emeritus for Youth Corps and has dedicated much of his life to helping shift the vision of people’s lives. Youth Corps is a life-changing leadership development experience that inspires high school students to be leaders in the Midlands and beyond. You can connect with Jeff at [email protected].