My physical therapist at Professional Rehab Associates next to New River Carilion Hospital apologized Wednesday for a slight delay in starting my latest session.

“No problem,” I said. “If I was in a hurry, I wouldn’t live in Floyd.”

Living in Floyd includes means being on “Floyd Time,” a timeline that does not conform to any other measurement of hours, minutes or seconds.

How, some might wonder, can Floyd Time exist in our increasingly demanding schedules?

Good question.  A obviously impatient woman sitting in her car behind my motorcycle the other day honked her horn about a half-second after the light changed at Main and Locust streets in town.

Seldom hear such demands for instant reactions in Floyd.  Roanoke or Christiansburg yes and Amy and I heard horns honking all over the place while living the nation’s capital for 23 years.

But Floyd?  So I kicked the Harley into neutral, put the kickstand down, turned the bike off, removed my helmet, walked to the driver’s side of the car while taking off my gloves and asked the woman: “If there something you need?”

Her response suggested I attempt an impossible physical act on myself along with some choice of comments about my ancestry. I smiled, thanked her, walked back to the bike, put my helmet and gloves back on, raised the kickstand and started the bike.

By that time, the light had burned red again, so I waited.  In the rear view mirror she was agitated and gave me a sign that involved raising a single finger.

Obviously, she wasn’t living on Floyd Time.  Her car displayed plates from North Carolina. Question answered.

Some local residents nowadays display a bumper sticker that says something like: “Living in Floyd ain’t what it used to be.”

Is hat comment a positive endorsement of changes in our town or a critique?  Opinions vary.

Seems to be a lot discussion about whether our town, our state or our nation are not the places where what is good is gone and what is bad controls our lives.

Perhaps this is a good place to resurrect the words of Mark Antony, as written by Shakespeare:

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;

A rational discussion of what may or may not be wrong with Virginia or America may or may not be possible in our environment these days and I am not here to bury Floyd.

Instead, how not praise our town and county?

Is it that hard?

Some think and say so.

Others do not.

A some point, I will get around to add to this discourse.

Not now.

I’m on Floyd Time.