Turn Right to see the Badger

In an effort to cut expenses at the Clark house, Mr. Clark has begun driving like a UPS driver. No, he doesn’t wear a brown uniform, nor has he (at least not yet) painted our vehicles brown - but he is making only right turns, whenever possible.

You see, he read an article about how UPS plots delivery routes to use the maximum possible number of right turns. The idea behind this is left turns involve more idling at stop lights and corners – and, more idling equals more fuel use and greater carbon dioxide emissions.

UPS began the right turn thing a couple of years ago, and it must really work, as currently 90% of the turns UPS drivers make to deliver the nearly 15-million packages they deliver each day are right turns. In 2007, UPS trucks drove 2.6-billion miles, and all those right turns saved 3-million gallons of fuel, as well as reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 32,000 metric tons.

Back to Mr. Clark. While I appreciate his efforts to cut our fuel costs (and reduce the size of our carbon footprint), driving through town with him is a maddening experience. We all know how terrible Winder traffic is – well, add the challenge of making only right turns, and you can imagine how long it seems to take to get anywhere in Winder with Mr. Clark at the wheel.

It reminds me of taking rides with my grandpa when I was little. My grandparents lived in a town much like Winder, only smaller, and with less traffic. My grandpa was a big driver – loved driving, always had nice cars, lived for a good road trip. So, sometimes - I suppose it was when the urge to drive hit him, but there was no trip planned - he would take me for a ride, all around his little town.

We’d go to the post office to get his mail, then visit a few of his merchant friends downtown. Then we’d cruise around to see “the new construction” - which in this town meant a new roof, a freshly repaired driveway, a new swing set in a back yard, or a repainted restaurant sign. Sometimes we’d go out to the airport to “see if there’s any new planes” - there never were. Other times we’d drive out in the country to “see the wheat.” (My family had a wheat farm outside town, and let me tell you, wheat grows pretty slow if you’re checking on it frequently.)

The ride would wind down with an ice cream cone at the Dairy Queen. The last stop was always to “go see the badger.” (The high school mascot was a badger, and they kept a poor, sad, sample specimen in a cage out by the airport.) Sometimes we’d take the badger a snack. Other times we’d just check on him.
I remember these rides as being pleasant in their own way, but also pretty boring and slow. It seemed like my grandpa could cruise around for hours, not really seeing anything – and he didn’t even know about the right turn thing.

One day, sitting next to Mr. Clark as he wound his way through Winder, making only right turns - no hope of reaching our destination in sight – it hit me. This was just like going to see the badger with my grandpa - only I’m much older now, have a lot less patience, and there’s no ice cream cone involved. No wonder I’ve started sending Mr. Clark out on errands alone most of the time!

“Too bad there’s no badger in Winder,” I told him. “If there was, at least we could go see him, as we wind our way through town, one right turn at a time.”
“How do you know there’s no badger in Winder?” Mr. Clark responded. “Maybe we’ll stumble upon him on one of our “trips” (to and from the grocery, the post office, the bank, etc.)

I don’t know if Winder has a badger. Maybe, instead, there’s a wog – somewhere, in a little cage, hoping for some visitors or a snack. If he’s out there, we’ll find him. Then “seeing the wog” he can become part of Mr. Clark’s right turn routes through Winder.

In the meantime, think of all the gas we’re saving…