Taking the Next Exit

"Whale," entreated the voice on the phone. "Ah can pay you mower to teach these three claysses than you can mayke substitute teachin' all year." She had a point.  Yet my own just-uttered protests that "I am a high school, not a college, teacher" caused me to hesitate.  She used my pause to accelerate. "Would you at least be willin' to come to mah office on Monday to tawlk abaout it?"  I relented. "OK, how do I get there?" Her instructions were clear: "Take I-40 West from Knoxville and get off at the next exit after Brown Squirrel Furniture." 

Usually when we take an exit off of an interstate, it is a purposeful act and we know what to expect:  lunch at Cracker Barrel, a fill-up, or a cozy room for the night.  Sometimes we get a surprise, like the time I was driving from Florida to Tennessee to visit my sister and a tire blew as I was leaving the interstate.  To my great relief, a full-service station was right next to the Hampton Inn where I’d planned to stay for the night.  Thank goodness there was a safe place to land at the end of that exit ramp.

I didn’t realize it when I took the next exit after Brown Squirrel Furniture the following Monday morning, but that decision provided me with a safe place to land, too.  By the time I'd reached Dr. Reynolds’ office, I realized that she was right.  Comfortable or not, since I’d moved to Tennessee without having secured a high school teaching job, I needed to accept her offer to teach college students until I could get "a real job."  I put it in drive and signed on the dotted line.  That was twenty-three years ago.  I have remained at Pellissippi State Community College, teaching writing and college success classes, directing a learning center, earning two graduate degrees and, for the past thirteen years, counseling students to seek their own path. 


Sometimes an exit ramp is just an exit ramp.  Other times it’s a byway to a new life.