BLOG: The Magnificent Interstate — From Flint to Indy and Beyond

BySaleh Aldasouqi, MD, FACE, ECNU

When I first arrived in Flint, Michigan in 1992, to start my internal medicine residency at Hurley, a community affiliated teaching hospital of Michigan State University, my family and I lived in an apartment complex south of Flint, just off Interstate 475. On the daily commute to Hurley, I would cross I-69, intersecting at a right angle — I-475 goes south to north and I-69 goes west to east.

In some way, I pictured “the magnificent” I-69 as geographically mapping my medical journey, in terms of both my training and career.

Before coming to America, I grew up in Jordan and learned driving from my late father when I was 16 years old. He worked on a large farm 1 hour north of Amman. I would work odd jobs in the summer and one summer I asked my father if I could spend it working on the farm and he agreed. At the time, there were British construction engineers in the farm who were building six giant poultry houses. My job was to work as a manual laborer.

Before my father would trust me with the job he had to make sure I was a good driver. My father was a mechanic foreman on the farm, with extensive experience in engines.

My other job, was driving the jeep and taking the British engineers from the houses to the construction field. My father’s main intention in agreeing to give me the job on the farm had to do with the British engineers, he thought it would improve my English skills.

My father taught me that I should always know where I am while driving. He taught me that I should always imagine the road I am on, how to reach to my destination, and how each road is connected to the others.

Now, we have GPS but I still follow my father’s advice, I always have a back-up map in my mind. I try to know where exactly I am, while allowing the GPS to guide my driving but I am always ready to second guess the instructions.

The first thing I learned upon arriving in Flint was a picture of the map in my mind. The commute to Hurley was about 10 miles. At first, it was scary entering the freeway, we had no roads like that in Jordan.

After completing my residency at Hurley, I was accepted to the endocrinology fellowship program at Indiana University in Indianapolis, in 1994. Indianapolis was the end of I-69 at the time, at exit marker # 1.

After my fellowship, I took a job in southeast Missouri, in 1996. It was very far from Indianapolis and I had thought it was the end of my relationship to I-69 until years later, when I realized I was wrong. It never occurred to me while in Indianapolis that something would happen to I-69.

At the time, I heard on the local news that there were plans to expand I-69, it turned out to be part of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to facilitate trade between Canada, the United States and Mexico; I-69 would be nicknamed, the NAFTA Superhighway. So, moving to southeast Missouri would not be the end of my journey with I-69.

In 2009, during a visit to Kentucky Dam Lake in Paducah, Kentucky, I spotted a sign for a newly constructed stretch of highway and it said “Future I-69.”

The NAFTA plan would mandate that I-69 become a very long highway from Port Huron, Michigan, on the Canadian border, to Corpus Christie, Texas, on the Mexican border, traversing through several states.

Again, I was living close to the future I-69.

Then in 2005, I began my academic job at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan, and again by I-69. The neighborhood where we live now, is actually just off I-69 Business Loop.

Finally, I wish to conclude the blog with a couple of observations about Interstates 475 and 69. The numbering system for interstate freeways and their exits is fascinating.!

A 2-digit designation denotes a major freeway, and a 3-digit designation denotes an intestate’s branch into a major city. Interstate 75 is a very long freeway that begins in Florida and ends in Michigan. As I-75 traverses states, city branches are designated 3-digit numbers that are repeated in every state. In Flint, I-75 branches into I-475 which I used on my daily commute to work during my internal medicine training at Hurley.

And that is the story of the magnificent I-69 and how I-69 and I have shared and crossed paths throughout my medical career.