American Geography 101: My top fives

MY TOP FIVES

Favorite drives

1.) Road: Interstate 40 East. Cities and towns: Between Asheville, North Carolina and Newport, Tennessee.

As beautiful as Asheville is, your remaining time on I-40 after getting ripped off at the Biltmore Estate is worth the inflated price of gas. This stretch takes you through the great Smoky Mountains in extreme western North Carolina. Depending on how fast you drive, this 65-mile trek should take no more than an hour. The best time to take this trip, without a doubt, is in fall.

2.) Road: US 101 North. Cities and towns: Ventura, Santa Barbara, Montecito.

As if her millions weren't good enough, this is the drive Oprah Winfrey (a Montecito resident) takes into the outskirts of Los Angeles county. This trek up 101 rides along the Pacific shoreline from Ventura to Santa Barbara, a stretch that is home to some of the Golden State's largest waves. To your right you cannot miss the picturesque Santa Ynez mountains, one of the few east-west ranges in the United States. This is a great drive at any time of the year.

3.) Road: Encinal Canyon Road north off PCH to Mulholland Drive. Cities and towns: Malibu and Westlake Village, California.

This half-hour drive is not for the faint of heart. It is chock-full of twists, turns and shear rock formations. Those of us who like to enjoy the view of the Santa Monica Mountains should be weary of expensive sports cars who like to turn this stretch of road into a Rally track. This is a great trip year-round, though it could get dicey during fire season.

4.) Road: Highway 1A off US 1. Cities and towns: York Corner, York, York Harbor and York Beach, Maine. This two lane road takes you several miles along the shore of the Atlantic Ocean through several small vacation settlements in southern Maine. Most any drive in Coastal Maine would suffice, however. If you are in town, stop in to the Lobster Cove restaurant, situated about 50 feet from the Atlantic shoreline. They serve a mean clam chowder and are famous for their bisque. I had a burger, of course. The Cove is more house than restaurant, with two stories of dining and two roaring fireplaces.

5.) Road: SC-46 to SC-170 to US-17. Cities and towns: Bluffton, South Carolina and Savannah, GA.

This 26-mile drive through the lowland pines of South Carolina culminates in the rise of the Talmadage Memorial Bridge in Savannah. The beautiful cable-stayed bridge over the Savannah river dumps you off into the city center, just blocks from the famous historic district.

Honorable mention: I-90 through Hidden Valley, upstate New York; US-31 between Charlevoix and Petsokey, Michigan; The Flint Hills in Southeastern Kansas; Ocean drive, Miami Beach, Florida; West Side Highway, New York City; PJ McArdie Roadway, Mt. Washington (Pittsburgh, PA); North Long Beach Blvd., Seaside Heights, NJ; Lakeshore drive, Chicago, Illinois; The King's Highway (Eastbound 401) between Missasauga and Toronto, Ontario (18 lanes of fun);

Favorite cities

1.) Savannah, Georgia
2.) Charleston, South Carolina
3.) Miami, Florida
4.) New York, New York
5.) Toronto, Ontario

Favorite states

1.) South Carolina
2.) Michigan
3.) California
4.) Maine
5.) Alabama

Favorite climate zones

1.) Mediterranean
2.) Humid Subtropical
3.) Continental Steppe
4.) Humid Continental
5.) Highland

Favorite regions

1.) Old South (Carolinas and Georgia)
2.) Southland (Southern California)
3.) Up North (Michigan)
4.) New England (Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine)
5.) The Bible Belt (deep south portion)

Favorite expressways

1.) US 101 (Southern California)
2.) US 40 (Western North Carolina)
3.) Highway 401 (Toronto, Ontario)
4.) I-35 (Southern Kansas)
5.) I-90 (Upstate New York)

Favorite mass transit systems

1.) New York City (Subway)
2.) Toronto (The Rocket and electric trolleys)
3.) Boston (The Red Line and electric trolleys)
4.) Washington D.C. (The Metro)
5.) Chicago (The EL)

Skylines

1.) Pittsburgh, PA
2.) New York, NY
3.) Chicago, IL
4.) Cincinnati, OH
5.) Toronto, ON

Favorite state capitol buildings

1.) Des Moines, IA
2.) Albany, NY
3.) Boston, MA
4.) Charleston, WV
5.) Columbus, OH

Traffic nightmares

1.) Los Angeles, CA
2.) Chicago, IL
3.) New York, NY
4.) Atlanta, GA
5.) Detroit, MI

Cities on the rise

1.) Nashville, TN
2.) Charlotte, NC
3.) Birmingham, AL
4.) Atlanta, GA
5.) Oklahoma City, OK

Cities on the decline

1.) Detroit, MI
2.) Saint Louis, MO
3.) Memphis, TN
4.) Pittsburgh, PA
5.) New Orleans, LA

Best small cities

1.) Augusta, GA
2.) Mt. Pleasant, SC
3.) Santa Barbara, CA
4.) Petoskey, MI
5.) Portland, ME

Best major airports

1.) Charlotte Douglas (CLT)
2.) Dallas-Ft. Worth (DFW)
3.) Atlanta Hartsfield (ATL)
4.) Miami International (MIA)
5.) Sky Harbor (PHX)

Restaurants on the road

1.) Chick-fil-a
2.) Chick-fil-a
3.) Chick-fil-a
4.) Chick-fil-a
5.) Chick-fil-a

My week in the jury box

For the past week, I've had the good fortune of serving my city, my county, my state, my country and my fellow man.

Or, at least that is what I was told.

I did my civic duty, serving as a juror and ruling on a civil case brought before Judge Thomas Yuille.

I arrived last Tuesday morning at the Genesee County Courthouse, bright and early, and nearly slept through a propaganda video that basically equated jury duty to taking fire in a foxhole at Guadalcanal.

Not long after the sappy video was over, I was taken with about 50 others into the courtroom for voir dire. This process of selecting a jury is interesting, in that both parties have opportunities to dismiss prospective jurors without cause--a veto we call premptory challenge.

The jury box was one sucker short of being full when I heard my name called by the clerk of the court.

I approached the podium knowing that I would be a shoe-in for dismissal. As it turned out, it was the perfect storm that morning.

In this case the plaintiff, one Jamie Prevo, was sueing his former employer, Merchants and Medical Credit Corporation, for unlawful termination.

I alerted counsel to the fact that I had been a debtor of MMCC when I was only two years out of high school, and that my dealings with them were less than perfect.

The plaintiff's counsel, obviously, liked me because it was, undoubtedly, their believe that as a debtor I might be sympathetic to Mr. Prevo. On the other hand, the defense wanted me on that jury because they knew I was educated. As an educated person, I wouldn't be as prone to being duped by a shrewd attorney at $300 per hour.

And so, neither had an objection to my presence and before long I was listening to opening statements with my seven new friends.

The particulars

Mr. Prevo was claiming two things:

1.) That the defendant (MMCC) fired him after learning that he was going to report the company for using illegal software on numerous computers.

2.) That the defendant (MMCC) discriminated against him as a result of his weight.

I did my best to keep an open mind, but the case seemed contrived from the very start.

First, Mr. Prevo was MMCC's top computer technician and loaded the illegal software himself. Mr. Prevo, however, opted to go with the "Nuremberg" defense, claiming that he was forced to do it and that he feared losing his job if he didn't.

It was a ridiculous defense, however, because had Mr. Prevo refused and been fired for it, he would have an open-and-shut case of unlawful termination.

Since the burden of proof was on the plaintiff to prove his case, I waited for a smoking gun...and waited...and waited.

The claim of weight discrimination was feckless, based only on hearsay. Further, Mr. Prevo was actually 100+ pounds heavier when he was first hired by MMCC.

As for the claim of being unlawfully discharged while under the protection of the Whistleblower's Act, the plaintiff failed to prove that he was dismissed on account of the threat to turn the company in.

It became clear, by virtue of numerous testimonies of co-workers, that Mr. Prevo was actually fired for making a threat to "wipe the computers clean".

After an embarrassing closing argument by the plaintiff's counsel, it was obvious to me what our decision would be.

In spite of the plaintiff's request of $130,000 in damages, my jury awarded him nothing.

It took some work, but I convinced my fellow jurors that Mr. Prevo was, indeed, under the protection of the Whistleblower's Act when he threatened to turn his employer into authorities and that he was subsequently terminated. However, since there was no causal connection between the protected act and the termination, he was not entitled to damages under the act.

As with any jury rendering a verdict against the plaintiff, no one looked in his direction when we entered the courtroom.

After being discharged by Judge Yuille, we went back to the jury room and were allowed to ask questions of the judge. He did not hesitate to tell us that he would have ruled in the same manner. Further, he informed us that Mr. Prevo had previously been arrested for hacking into computers--information that was suppressed during the trial.

He had the wrong jury

It's now all too obvious to me how we get many of the insane decisions in our court systems. To be a juror, you really need only to be an 18-year-old citizen in somewhat good standing.

There are a lot of uneducated people out there, and if you happen to get eight of them together in a room, anything can happen.

It would have been easy to get side-tracked with all the irrelevant hardship testimony about Mr. Prevo's personal life. That being said, I took pains during deliberations to remind my fellow jurors to only consider what the plaintiff proved against what the law says.

Mr. Prevo had preexisting emotional distress that had no direct correlation to his termination from employment at MMCC.

Mr. Prevo just had the wrong jury. It is scary to think that we could have forced MMCC to pay any amount of money we saw fit.

And the real tragedy of frivolous lawsuits like this one is that in this country, unlike many others, the loser does not have to pay the winner's court costs. There should be a stiff penalty for bringing anyone to court on dubious grounds.

A lighter moment

I felt a little guilty, at least at first, for questioning the competence of one of my fellow jurors. Juror #6 was an older women with hearing and vision problems in addition to obvious mental issues.

I didn't know exactly what to say about her to the rest of the jury, but luckily she did the hard work for me.

During our first lunch as a jury, she sat at my table at the Masonic Temple in downtown Flint. Like any avid reader, I had a book with me just in case I had some down time. The book, sitting on the table, drew her interest right away.

"Is that book about the case?" she asked.

After giving her the "you can't be serious" look, I calmly answered, "nope" and went about eating my lunch.

I've been known to churn out information in print fairly quickly, but publishing a book about a court case only two hours old would have been a challenge.

(The book, just for the record, was Rammer Jammer, Yellow Hammer.)

Juror #6 was eventually dismissed, deemed to be incapable of serving due to the amount of meds she is currently taking.