Beech Tree News Network

When I was a little girl, if my parents went somewhere, my two younger sisters and I went along.  At that time, we had two older sisters who could have kept an eye on us at home, however, my dad and stepmom always took the three of us with them on these relatively insignificant trips.  We never went anywhere remotely interesting.  The interesting trips, like to the grocery store, involved the entire family.  These side trips were usually business related.  A tract of timber my dad wanted to buy, a chainsaw that needed rebuilt, or a part for his log truck.

  Our stepmom and we three small girls waited in the car, while Dad went inside someone’s house or garage or office at the junkyard to conduct business for his sawmill.  The waiting was often mind numbing.  My dad was a talker, and sometimes after the wait had become excruciatingly lengthy, we would beg Mom to honk the horn to signal to Dad that the people in the car were still waiting.  Some waits were two-honkers.  These usually occurred when Dad was wrapped up in a story he thought was amusing.  He would return to the car, still laughing to himself, then we would go home.

We never questioned the reason for the three of us having to tag along.  It’s just what my family did.  I can remember a few conversations my younger sisters and I had while waiting in the car.  We discussed things like our favorite ice cream, what we wanted for Christmas, or the songs topping the charts on WAKY radio at the time. (We had older sisters, so we were well aware of the goings on of the music scene.)  The most memorable of these conversations had to do with our teeth.  I had learned in school that most people have an overbite or an underbite, very few people have neither.  I explained the difference to my siblings, and we proceeded to examine one another’s mouths.  It was discovered that my two sisters had overbites, and I had an underbite.  We were quite satisfied with our findings.  It took little to satisfy the curiosity of small children back in the day.

“In the car” was quite different when my girls were growing up.  It usually meant a frantic dash from point A to point B.  We seemed to be always trying to arrive on time and barely meeting the goal.  There were arguments between the two girls, and sometimes among all three of us, over things that seem ridiculously mundane in hindsight.  When the girls were small, there were long trips to Alabama, where Garey’s family lived, with cranky children or colicky babies, while going on little to no sleep.  I wish I had had enough sense back then to just keep us out of the car.  Our good “in the car” times happened on vacation.  I guess, because we were all more relaxed.  We were kinder to each other, we laughed more.  We figured things out.  We became better people.

Today, I spend a lot of time in the car with my granddaughter, Sabria.  She lives in Bowling Green, so that means we get quality time on the road.  She pulls up songs on her phone for me to listen to.  “This is DRIVERS LICENSE, by Olivia Rodrigo,” she says, as she cranks up the volume.

“I saw a hoodie online I would like to have,” she tells me.  “It says, I CAME, I SAW, I HAD ANXIETY, I LEFT.”  We both laugh. 

Sometimes, we discuss current events.  I explain, to the best of my ability, the conflict that is escalating between Israel and Hamas.  She is saddened at the news of the number of civilian deaths already.  Sometimes, we talk about historical events.  She is outraged to learn it was the US who dropped the atomic bombs on Japan.  I explain that Harry Truman met with his military advisors before making the decision to do so.  They told him if the US was involved in a ground assault on Japan, we would lose up to 500,000 servicemen.  He chose to go with the two bombs instead.  

“I won’t try to justify any decision where innocent civilians suffer the consequences of war,” I tell her, “but sometimes leaders of countries just won’t back down, and its people pay the price.”  

After these kinds of conversations, we are both quiet, riding silently beside one another with the knowledge of the evil man can and will inflict on man.

I am reminded of a conversation I had with my daughter Natalie when she was in the first grade.  I picked her up at school.  When she got into the car, she told me she had learned about Martin Luther King that day, and she didn’t understand racial violence, because it was so unfair.  I explained to her that it was about choice, the choice to do evil or the choice to do good.

“I choose to do good!” she proclaimed.  She moved her hand in a sweeping gesture.  “Not just today, but for the rest of my life!”  She made that decision “in the car.”  She kept her word.