I couldn't believe my ears when I heard Interstate-3 might run through Lincoln County some day. That traffic between Knoxville and Savannah might be rolling through Red Devil land. My first thought was imagining a Flying-J truck stop in Lincoln County. Then I saw cloverleafs and the requisite businesses they bring. Gas stations, hotels, fast food shops, maybe a cheap gift shop even. Then I envisioned a huge green and white sign saying "Exit Lincolnton" as outof state traffic barreled from one end of the county and out the other in a matter of minutes.

I-3 is still on the Interstate Guide website (www.interstate-guide.com) as a future interstate, and if it comes to pass, well, talk about change.

It's one thing to get from one point to another quickly on an interstate. It's quite another thing to live near one. And I do. I live near two interstates: I-20 and I-26. And a third one, I-77 is just nine miles away. Columbia, South Carolina, is one of but ten cities with three interstates in the country and the traffic here can be rough when things go wrong. When accidents clog up an interstate, it affects the entire area. Traffic backs up and spills over into a lot of streets as frustrated drivers seek ways out of the bottleneck.

And the noise? You can hear the traffic in the distance, a river of steel flowing on and on. Now and then an eighteen-wheeler tips over in a cloverleaf and that shuts the area down for most of the day. Interstates are great until something goes wrong, and something goes wrong a lot.

All that aside, I'll readily admit that I like interstates as long as they run through someone else's back yard. Seems I'm always traveling an interstate. I-20 to Augusta and home. I- 95 to Savannah and points beyond, and I-95 to Raleigh. They make the trip a lot faster. And that is exactly what brought our interstate system into existence.

I'm writing a feature right now, "Notes From The Road," about U.S. Highway 76. It spans South Carolina and I've driven every mile of it. The impression that lingers most is how the towns and communities along its route took a huge step backwards when I-95 opened. This familiar byway suddenly was relegated to backroad status.

Echoes of the Old South reverberate where 76 plies the upper coastal plain and its flat fields. The reverberations ring across pastures, crops, and through the burnt-out hallways of abandoned homes. Charred homes here and there suggest that some modern-day Sherman blazed through here. The wealth that flowed over this road long ago went away for some, and the owners of these great homes are long gone, leaving ghostly reminders that glory once lived here. I lay this change at the feet of I-95 and tobacco's demise.

All you need do is drive the route and note all the abandoned stores and businesses to realize that something major went wrong here. That's change, not the good kind, and all this change came about in an interesting way.

In the summer of 1919, just months after World War I ended, a convoy of 81 vehicles set out from Washington, D.C., for San Francisco. The convoy's purpose was to road test Army vehicles. Another test, the test that matters to you, was to see what it was like to move an army across North America. Averaging six miles an hour, the convoy took 62 days to make it to San Francisco, a frustrating 3,251-mile trip.

Among the officers in that convoy was a young lieutenant colonel who went along "partly for a lark and partly to learn." He learned all right. During World War II, Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower saw how quickly troops moved along Germany's autobahns. "The old convoy had started me thinking about good, two-lane highways," he wrote years later in his memoir, At Ease, "but Germany had made me see the wisdom of broader ribbons across the land."

President Eisenhower's 1919 convoy and World War II experiences helped him persuade Congress to pass the Federal-Aid Highway Act, the Interstate act. The interstate system now runs 46,876 miles and if Interstate 3 comes to pass, well, that total will climb. What would that mean to county routes 79 and 47? Nothing good, if they suffer 76's fate, but it could be worse.

Highway 76, the road I'm writing about, may be a backroad to those speeding along interstates, but to those who live along it and go to work on it, Highway 76 is their river of sustenance. To them, it is the most important road in the world, and the worst thing that could happen to it would be having an interstate built right on top of it. It's safe, though, much of its former traffic speeds along I-95 and I-26.

Highway 76 isn't alone, of course. The end of the journey began for many fine two-lanes June 29, 1956, the day President Dwight Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act. Fifty-three years later, a grid of steel, cement, and asphalt makes it possible to cross the country and see little other than signs, interchanges, bridges, barriers, and orange safety barrels.

So, will I-3 come?

I'm not getting into all the stats, facts, and arguments concerning I- 3. The project has its opponents and proponents. We all though, foes and friends of interstates alike, travel Eisenhower's "broad ribbons," and I can't speak for you but deep inside I'm grateful an interstate doesn't run through the county. To live along an interstate is to be inconvenienced. You can't just pull onto an interstate from your driveway. No way. And so a frontage road has to be built on both sides taking up even more land, throwing up even more cement and asphalt and ever-widening right of ways.

And it all started with Ike whose dream transformed our country. We can speed here and there pretty easily, but our companion is boredom. Drive an interstate and all you'll see are concrete, billboards, and eighteenwheelers.

If a peaceful, quite Lincoln County suits you, watch out for I-3. It'll bring some good things, yes, but it will bring a lot of bad things too. My feeling is that if it happens at all it will be a long ways down the road. Maybe in another lifetime.

All this interstate business brings to mind the old islands in the South Carolina Lowcountry. People complained that getting to them was too difficult, so they lobbied for bridges and the politicians gave them bridges. And then people complained that the bridges to the islands were too narrow. They were widened, and major change began to arrive. All change needed was a better way to get construction equipment to the islands and bigger bridges served that purpose. All these years later, people lament the loss of the old islands' character and natural beauty. You know how it goes. Be careful what you want, you just might get it.

The interstates transformed us into a highway culture, literally sending people in opposite directions. Great dividers, literally, they changed us more than we realize and they will continue to change us. Will that change come rushing headlong through Lincoln County someday? And if it does, will it divide people? What then?

Email Tom with feedback and ideas for new columns. tompol @earthlink.net