For years, we have spent the holidays on the road, which has been brought about by having family anchorings in Dallas and Charlotte.  We need an assist from Delta to get to one destination and Heyward Allen Motor Co. to get to the other.

While there is hassle in air travel today, it is eased by the good folks at my favorite airline, like Sabrina Cornelius, who is as passionate about Auburn football as her many Georgia friends are about the Bulldogs.  We have come to give her a robust thumbs-up for the holidays.

When we drive to Charlotte, we usually find that Steve Middlebrooks and his staff, led by Ken Evans (he’s a Dawg) and Tracy Collins (she’s not), allow us to make our sojourn with confidence that it will be a pleasant and uneventful trip.

On our western swing from 35,000 feet up, we see on the flight tracker towns we have motored through over the years—Montgomery, Jackson, Stuttgart, Little Rock, Fayetteville, Fort Smith, Paris, Texarkana, McKinney, and into the DFW Airport.

Every locale has a special memory from having had breakfast with the governor and speaker of the house at the Governor’s mansion in Montgomery to visiting Graceland in Memphis, bringing down mallards and pintails at Stuttgart, to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, founded by the Walton family at Bentonville, Ark., to having breakfast with Lee Trevino near the DFW Airport.

With our son’s connection, we got a much-appreciated discount for a short stay at the Ritz-Carlton at Las Colinas, also near DFW Airport.  With early-morning habits dating back to my days down on the farm, I enjoy the solitude of our hotel lobby before daybreak.  Nice, comforting Christmas music wafted about as I was the first to take advantage of the complimentary coffee stand, and I segued into a perusal of the Dallas Morning News and the New York Times.

There is coverage of killings, ambushes, accidents, political threats and insults, with which I give a parting glimpse, but lock in with the features that hold sway with the hopes that we will have the good sense to save the glaciers, the polar bears, and the Okefenokee Swamp. Even a million miles from this most valuable swamp, people are sensitive to its survival.

I always enjoy the columnists who get published in the Times. I may not agree with some opinions, but I appreciate the varied viewpoints and the excellent writing.  I hope the Times will be diligent in keeping the new mayor of New York on his toes.  The Times has always taken issue with loose cannons, and Mamdani may be the newspaper’s biggest challenge yet.

A drive to Charlotte offers a similar opportunity to reflect as one’s route slides by Clemson, where Dabo Swinney has brought national fame to 

Tigerland.  Crossing the Savannah River, you realize you are near Petersburg, once a bustling community following the Revolutionary War but now submerged beneath the placid waters of Clark’s Hill Lake.

When you pass the exits to Spartanburg, you reflect on the small-town life of Charlie Bradshaw (Dublin, Georgia and Wofford, S. C.) and ask that the man upstairs to send more executives, who are given an extra helping of humility and modesty when they rise to the top of their profession, like Charlie.

Crossing the Palmetto state border into North Carolina, you reflect on the appeal of the two Carolinas—to the South, the low country, which is one of the most pleasant areas on the Eastern seaboard; and to the north, the equally charming and emotional stirring from visiting the “Outer Banks.”

Travel—even if it is retracing old steps—reconfirms what a great country this is.  You just can’t get enough of America if you appreciate what it has to offer.

It makes you hark back to the theme song of the old Dina Shore commercial.  “See the USA in your Chevrolet, America is asking you to call.  Drive your Chevrolet through the USA, America’s the greatest land of all.”

That is one of the greatest commercials of all time.