Get Out Of Dodge         

By TAD BARTIMUS

Used to be, when high summer came along, my folks would announce "it's time get out of Dodge" and pile us into the station wagon with a few beat-up old Samsonites, some rickety lawn chairs and a leaky cooler. We'd hit the road without a backward glance.

I don't know where the phrase came from, but my parents were avid "Gunsmoke" fans and Marshall Dillon was always putting the heat on somebody to "get out of Dodge." As happens in families, the phrase became slang for "time to get away from it all." We'd pull the plug on the percolator, make baloney sandwiches and leave.

Usually, we headed for grandma's or some fishing camp with one-room cabins beside a lake. My dad would happily sweat in a boat all day, mom would read under a tree and we kids would swim off the dock while keeping a sharp eye out for water moccasins. My parents never phoned home or worried about undone chores; it was time to play, to have fun, stretch the body, rest the mind. 

It is 1:30 a.m., and I am trying to "get out of Dodge." I am so frazzled I may not make it. I have over-extended myself with a 27-item "to do" list and just realized that most of the things I've crossed off were not urgent. I still haven't packed. I ask myself why I'm behaving as though I'm leaving on a year-long trek in the Hindu Kush instead of a couple of weeks in Montana. How did someone brought up by two people who just said "get in the car, we're going" become such a control freak?

Blame it on egos and modems. My parents knew a lot of people but had a small circle of friends. They didn't have e-mail and only telephoned long distance to relatives on their birthdays or talked to faraway friends when they'd drunk too much Christmas Eve eggnog. When they decided to go on vacation they announced it by leaving a note for the mailman on the door and letting the newspapers pile up in the driveway.

To their generation, a job was a place to go to during the week and then forget about on weekends. Everybody knew the work would still be there on Monday morning; why get exorcised about it?. 

My generation has somehow come to believe we're indispensable, that the earth will stop spinning if we don't oversee every itty-bitty detail of our professional and private lives. "Here, let me do it," we volunteer, secretly thinking, "Get out of the way, if you do it you'll mess it up!" Our penchant for tying up loose ends has multiplied like a cold virus on a long-distance flight, causing us to lose track of how to shut down the computer, turn off the light and walk out the door.

We compulsively e-mail all business contacts our daily schedules whether they want to know them – need to know them – or not. We send itineraries to people who don't care. We put yellow sticky notes next to our toothbrushes to remind ourselves of deadlines nobody else knows about.

Yesterday I spent the day haranguing my spouse like a Texas trail boss trying to corral a loose bull: "Get up from that TV and get those leaves off the grass, empty that new sack of dog food into the can, charge up the cell phone." Being used to my pre-trip mania, he didn't pay much attention, causing me to add item No. 28 to my "to do" list –reconsider decision not to divorce husband.

Okay. I'm surrendering to the clock, throwing the "to do" list in the trash can and resisting the urge to empty it again. I'm forcing myself to admit the sun will still come up tomorrow if I don't get the lint cleaned out of the dryer or the fax paper roll changed. 

As we pull out of the driveway I think of my mother, smiling at me as she waved me off to college: 

"I promise to miss you," she yelled, "if you'll just get gone!" 

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