Holiday Traveling Concluded...For Now

We made it safely back from Wichita on Saturday. We only had to stop the car once in an attempt to referee the girls. I had flashbacks to my childhood of, "Do you want me to stop this car? Do you want to walk the rest of the way?!"

I specifically recalled one time when I was maybe seven years old and my brother was six. Because my Dad's family lived twenty miles from anywhere in the northwest Kansas flatlands we made the six-to-seven-hour drive to grandma and grandpa's house several times per year. The last thirty minutes of the drive took us down dirt roads with hills that rolled just enough to make our stomachs leap into our throats. By then our family had exhausted every possible traveling game from the ABC game to singing to license-plate-whatever and my brother and I had exhausted our last scrap of tolerance, which hadn't come from a large scrap heap to begin with.

On this particular trip my brother and I rode in the back seat of a burgundy 4-door 1974 Pontiac Grand Ville. The velvety velour bench seat was divided into three sections. The two primary passenger areas were separated in the middle by an eight-inch segment of seat bordered by velour tubing. That tubing designated our boundaries, effectively placing eight inches of neutral territory between my brother and me...supposedly.

Not that day. On that day as we drove the last dirt miles, my brother placed the very tip of his index finger barely over the velour boundary.

"Mo-om! Brad's on my side!"

Mom turned around to see. "Bradley Alan, stop that!"

As Mom faced the front again, Brad gave me a look that contributed to my special nickname for him, BADley, and placed his finger into my territory.

"Mo-om! He's doing it again," I tattled.

Without even looking Mom said in her warning tone, "Bradley Alan...!"

Brad removed his finger. A few minutes later Brad did it again, I tattled again, and Dad chimed in with the parental threat issued since the invention of the automobile, "If I have to pull this car over, you'll be walking!"

To be honest, I don't remember if the-finger-over-the-border was the last straw, or if one of us became more original, but Dad slammed on the brakes so hard that Brad and I rammed our heads into the back of the front seats (this was before we all became so seatbelt-conscious...however did we survive???).

"That's it! Get out of the car! I've had it!" Knowing Dad, there were probably a few expletives sprinkled in. I immediately started bawling and Brad remained stoic as we exited the car. Brad never cried, even when he received one whale of a spanking (yes, this was also before we learned that spanking ruined a child's psyche for life...snort). Dad slammed the doors and drove off over the next hill, leaving Brad and me standing in northwest Kansas dust.

"Way to go. This is all your fault," I blamed. "Now what are we going to do?"

"I know the way. Let's go," Brad convincingly bluffed me.

We walked for five minutes, which seemed like an eternity in my seven-year-old mind. Mom and Dad had driven beyond our sight and I was already panicking about supper and a place to sleep.

Finally Dad backed the car up to us and simply said, "Get in." No threats, no instructions. We didn't need them. We were perfect, quiet angels for the remainder of the drive.

Unfortunately present-day Highway 400 is not a safe place to carry out this life lesson for my own children, though it was certainly tempting Saturday afternoon as Hannah screamed at every little thing Hailey did. It was also tempting when, after finally leaving Hailey alone, Hannah began making a sucking noise with her mouth that Katie could not tolerate.

"Hannah, stop it," Katie commanded.

Suck, suck, suck, suck.

I said, "Hannah, please stop."

"BWAAAHHHH!!!" was Hannah's logical response.

Being ever the adult I said, "Well, there you have it Katie. Do you prefer THAT sound?"

Carl finally DID pull the Tahoe over so I could ride in the back with Hannah while Katie and Hailey rode in the front. Every time I would make a suggestion or comment, Carl made some tongue-in-cheek remark about backseat drivers, but at least we were all in good humor.

I know these are the stories that memories are made of and they'll be funny someday, but they sure are H-E-double-toothpicks when we're in the middle of them!

And Christmas traveling is just around the corner.