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Back before doors on airplanes started flying open and wings stated flapping, I boarded an airplane to Boston to visit my daughter.  A friend went along for the ride.

We went straight to car rental and asked for a medium-sized car with good gas mileage and a radio.

“When the man handed the keys over, he said. “Be vigilant on the round-abouts. Guess he could tell by our accents that we just came out of the cornfield.

We made it through the first round-about vigilantly, as the man said. Then, all (bleep) turned loose, we rounded-about into a madhouse of automobiles going 100 mph, honking horns but some the drivers were nice and waved to us out of their front windows.

Get off! Get off of here!! my friend yelled. But, where? How! 

A woman with a cigarette dangling from her mouth and smoke coming out of her ears, knew exactly where we needed to get off.  She made sure we got off. Round and round we go, where we stop nobody knows.

Since that long ago, time I will go a county mile to avoided a roundabout.

Until… Wednesday.

There was mighty good reason for me to be in Elba or Elbie.

Now, I’ve never understood, why the highway department came up with an idea, and not a good one, to put a roundabout in Springhill, Alabama, population 24, to replace the crossroads. Going, I only had to go around. Coming back, I had go round and round and round and…

The roundabout was a-maze-ing. There were more dips and curves than on the roll-a-coaster at the county fair.

Up and round, down and round. Men on the roundabout held signs that said right, left, up, down, HELP!

I didn’t know where to get off but it was straight shot to Enterprise.

I parked got my breath, prayed, closed my eyes and floor-boarded my five-shift automobile. I hit third gear and I went up and over and round and down until the round-about just spit me out. 

Next week: Another highway oddity: A four-lane highway with a four-way stop.