Day 5

When you're on the road for 44 days straight, you quickly learn to redefine the concept of weekends. Gone are the days of 48 consecutive hours with your family and friends, far away from the demands of the office. Due to planning and appointment challenges, today's relay schedule was the lightest it has been since we began our trek last Friday. After joining alumna, Dot Williams in delivering a copy of the Great Commitments to Florence mayor, Diane Whalen, and joining Dot and her wonderful company for breakfast, Amy and I hit route 127 and headed back down south towards Owenton and Frankfort to prepare for tomorrow's leg of the relay.

After we met over lunch to chart out our next course of action, I suddenly found myself in the lobby of the hotel waiting for check-in time. I also found myself faced with a potential free afternoon - no 15-passenger van, no proclamations, just me and nothing but time to myself. In case you are reading this, Bill - I quickly decided that I could use this time to respond to the 131 e-mails that I have received since yesterday. Bill (Laramee) as most of you may know, is the Vice President for Alumni and College Relations (aka "my boss") who never ceases to amaze me with his support of this relay as well as any other idea, program, or project that helps further the mission of Berea College. Not only has he made it possible for me to continue my work while on the road, just yesterday he checked up on me to make sure that Amy and I were safe from the tornadoes that had hit Northern Kentucky.

So as I sat there during my newly defined concept of a weekend, I thought to myself that it's not that bad to NOT have 48 straight hours away from work to be with my family and friends when "work" consists of having oatmeal at Bob Evans with dedicated alumni like Dot who graduated from Berea almost 60 years ago but still remembers the magic she felt as a student when she heard the chimes play during her first Christmas at Berea. It's not that bad when the definition of family expands to include people like Bill, who care enough about your well-being to check up on you, or my friend Dean who - having just returned from a week-long vacation AND his first day at a new job - still came out to support me for two hours at the alumni gathering in Newport, or Berea professor, Debbi Brock, who extended an open invitation to bring me some of her famous, homemade lasagna when restaurant food just won't do it anymore (almost there, Debbi, almost there).

So I've come to the conclusion, that although I may have given up my traditional weekends for the next five or so weeks, it's a fair trade when I have already gained way more than I ever imagined.

Signing off for the "weekend",

Mae