Stop the Car! I Wanna Get Out!

Had other pioneers followed my lead, no one would ever have crossed the Rockies. I’d have gotten out in one of the square states. I had a difficult time making car trips with my four children. No way would we ever have gone further than Kansas.

I don’t know how my mother did it. My dad was a naval officer and was assigned to a new base every two years or so. Dad flew in. Mom loaded up the car with the dog and the three of us children and drove across the country: from California to Florida; from Florida to Rhode Island; from Rhode Island back to California. These were the pre-interstate/pre-air conditioned car days. Squirt, our black cocker spaniel, rode in the front seat with Mom. Tomi, Ben, and I rode in the back seat and squabbled. “Ben’s on my side!” “Tomi’s touching me!” “Mom! How many more miles?” “Are we there yet?” “I gotta go, bad!”

To fully appreciate this scene, you must picture my mother. She was barely five feet tall, very petite, and quite beautiful, inside and out. Even when we made these long cross-country treks, she wore a dress—usually a full-skirted shirt-waist waist, three inch heels, earrings, lipstick, and mascara. We all adored her, as did everyone who knew her, but she had a no-nonsense way about her when vexed that could stop us cold every time. As children, we suspected her of being Rubber Woman because she could reach into the back seat and swat any of us while driving. That arm could fly out of nowhere!

From time to time, Mom pulled to a screeching halt, threw open her car door, ripped open ours, and commanded. “Get out of this car. Right this minute!” We all did, looking as sheepish as we could manage, and she read us the riot act. And that little lady was not one to be trifled with. She had a glare that could freeze a grown man in his tracks.

Once, as we drove through a sleepy little town in Georgia, the three of us were being especially rambunctious. Mom had already swatted us several times and told us more than once, “Knock it off!” But we felt pretty secure at that time. We were in a town full of people. There was no place to pull off, and so we continued to bicker. Oh, how we had deluded ourselves with this false sense of security. We had foolishly underestimated Mom once again.

She slammed on the brakes right smack dab in front of a courthouse where three old men sat, talking on a park bench. This was not a parking place but the middle of the street. Her door flew open and out she came. Our door opened, and out we tumbled onto the pavement. (We’d been wrestling on the floor.) “I’ve had all the nonsense I’m going to take from you all,” she said through clenched teeth but in a frighteningly firm tone. The tone and the look left us no doubt about the trouble we were in. “Turn around,” she said, and we did. She gave each of us a swat on the bottom, then said, “Get back in that car, and I don’t want to hear another peep. Do you understand?” As we nodded obediently, the men on the bench applauded, whistled and said something like, “Way to go.” The three of us didn’t utter a sound until we reached the motel that afternoon and remained subdued until we hit the swimming pool.

The farthest I ever drove my children was from Kentucky to Florida. I drove on a multi-lane interstate in an air-conditioned car, but I wasn’t even out of Kentucky before I was ready to turn around and go home. “Gavin’s on my side!” “Samantha’s touching me!” “Gavin’s making a face at me. Make him stop!” Cartier, the teenager, fell asleep before we left the driveway, and John, the youngest, just tried to maintain his status as Switzerland. On the Tennessee border, I pulled into the rest area. While the kids were in the restrooms, I took out a ballpoint pen and drew lines on my back seat. (Yes, I know. That reeks of Mommy madness, but I was a little nuts by then. We weren’t even halfway to Orlando, and I was already cracking). When the kids returned, I assigned places and dared them to move any part of their bodies beyond their spot. It worked for a while, but not long enough.

The next day, we drove the rest of the way, but I was soon weary of the backseat war that had resumed. As I sped along the interstate, from time to time, when the noise level had reached a deafening level, I reached into the back seat and swatted whomever I could reach. Then I heard Gavin whisper, “Next time we stop, I want another seat. I mean it. She can’t miss me in this swat seat.” I then laughed, and we made it the rest of the way.

When we reached the condo, I had but one more ordeal to undergo. I’d rented a big car-top carrier in which I’d packed all the clothes except the overnight bags. This was one of the many things I’ve done in my life that seemed like a good idea at the time. (I have told my best friend that my epitaph should read, “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”) My vision had been the ease of packing all of the clothes into the big carrier from which we could easily unpack. Plus, it wouldn’t take up so much room in my station wagon. However, I had to get it down, which was much more difficult than it had been to heft up since a neighbor had helped me to do that. Cartier was about five feet tall at the time, and I am just a bit taller. Cartier and I tried to ease it off, but first I was slightly wounded by a snapping bungee cord that left a big gash on my thumb. We almost had it, but then it slipped and fell to the ground, spilling the contents everywhere. Cartier, a teenager somewhat appalled by traveling with this little circus, said, in a voice dripping with adolescent sarcasm: “Great. Another Beverly Hillbillies moment.”

I had wanted to cry, to scream, but then I remembered my mother’s fortitude. At that moment, I thought about what Cartier had said and began to laugh. The five of us scooped up the clothes in our arms, and entered the elevator looking like hapless vagabonds. A nice looking couple already in the elevator looked at us somewhat aghast, and I started to giggle—one of those giggle-in-church kinds of giggles, when you don’t want to laugh and then do laugh all the harder. Cartier was further disgusted with her mother. The younger three weren’t too sure how to react. When I walked into the condo, I threw the load of clothes I had in my arms high into the air and laughed aloud. Finally, everyone else laughed. The good times had begun.

But trust me, I never would have made it over the Rockies—you can take that to the bank. I am not made of the same mettle as Mom. Never was. Never will be.

Happily Ever After: The Bedtime Story

The bedtime story is a treasured ritual handed down through generations in my family. My mother read to my brother, sister, and me. Mamaw read to her. Great-grandmother Sarah read to Mamaw. I come from a long line of maternal story readers, and I read to my children until they wouldn’t let me anymore. Nevertheless, I do admit—without shame—that I try to cajole my way into reading The Night before Christmas, aloud and with feeling, every Christmas—at least some of the Christmases when I am able to make everyone feel guilty enough. Now I have my grandson, Boone, as my Ace in the hole when it comes time for The Night before Christmas. He’s still young enough to think I’m fabulous. So there!


I dearly loved to hear my mother read to us at bedtime. Every night, Mom gathered Tomi, Ben, and me into one of our rooms and chose a book. That woman had fortitude. Our readings were laced with, “Ben, stop hitting your sister!” “Sit down, Tomi, and listen.” “Karen, stop squishing Ben.” (Ben always accused me of squishing him if I sat too close, but he hogged the view of the pictured page. I rest my case.) In spite of that nightly struggle, she read: “Emmeline! Where have you been?” from A. A. Milne’s “The Good Little Girl.” At the end, the three of us would chorus, “And the queen says my hands are perfectly clean!” at which point we dissolved into a laughter that took a few moments to quell. She read The Brownie Stories to us from the same book from which Mamaw read to her. But Mom was magic with “How the Elephant Got His Trunk,” from Kipling’s Just So Stories. When she did Crocodile’s voice, she whispered in a most sinister fashion: “Come hither, Little One.” The Bi-Colored-Python-Rock-Snake’s language of a very large vocabulary was read with a wonderful sibilance. When the Elephant’s Child had his nose clamped between the crocodile’s pointy teeth, Mom read his plaintive words while holding her nose for the full nasal effect. It was divine. I copied her style when I read to my own children and do the same for this next generation. I’m not quite as good as she was, but I do a passable job. Regardless of my expertise, it is entertaining for all of us.


I don’t get to read to Boone as often as I like as we are several states apart. However, I do have Tomi’s three grandchildren for a weekly audience. Since my most cherished childhood memory is listening to my mother read “How the Elephant Got His Trunk,” I can recite large portions of from memory. Since my children loved this story as much as I did, I bought the book for my six-year-old grand-nephew, Will, and I have the pleasure of reading to him. He thinks it a bit long, but I do all the animals in different voices and persist. I think I’m wearing him down, even though it is a book with no colored pictures and only one or two black-and-white sketches. I do not surrender easily. Will and I have a deal: I read two books of his choosing, and then he listens to one of mine. When he was younger, I lovingly—all right, sometimes begrudgingly--read about trucks and dinosaurs, even heavy machinery, just for the chance to read from Kipling or A. A. Milne’s Now We Are Six or a Dr. Seuss of my choosing. We now take turns reading, he to me and I to him.


Five-year-old Carter, named after my daughter, is not an easy audience and definitely no fan of a picture-less story, but I finally found the Fancy Nancy series and am winning her, too. Carter, like Fancy Nancy, appreciates an ensemble. Last week, she wore a green and white ballet dress with a very full skirt, multi-striped knee socks, hot pink shoes, and accessorized with a red patent leather purse. Carter is a very fancy girl. When she was younger, she was the kind of story listener who wore down some less intrepid than I, but I remembered Mom’s persistence. At one point, Carter only allowed one page of a book read aloud--over and over--or she let me start a book, then chose another for me to begin. It wasn’t easy, but I read whatever she would endure, and now we are up to two or three books on the nights I babysit. In the not too distant future, I plan to trot out Kipling again. I am not a quitter.

Three-year-old Charlie is currently into train books, but he has a few other favorites, including a favorite of every child to whom I’ve ever read: Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb. Okay, so Charlie doesn’t fully appreciate the rhythmic lilt I give to the story. He likes it because he is quite fond of monkeys. I’m all right with that.


When Boone was born, I gave him Kipling’s Just So Stories, A. A. Milne’s Now We Are Six and When We Were Very Young, favorites of mine and all of my children. I gave him John’s favorite book--Old Hat, New Hat; Cartier’s most loved--Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb; Gavin’s choice--The Things We Saw on Mulberry Street, and his mother Samantha’s--Green Eggs and Ham. Boone, who was not quite 18-months-old when I last read to him, is a very good audience. I started reading to him on his first day home, and yes, it was “The Elephant’s Child.” He was three days old. How could he have protested? He, like many children who have experienced books from birth—his parents read to him nightly--will look at books himself during the day, from time to time. That love of books begins early. Lately, he’s a bit of a menace to pop-up books, but all others are carefully tended and loved.


I taught English for many years and was always so sad when I heard a student profess a hatred of reading. I can understand why some may not gravitate to some of the required novels. Crime and Punishment isn’t for everyone. But when people tell me they detest reading in general, it breaks my heart. Those children missed so much young and may continue to miss more as they grow up, unless something catches their fancy. I am eternally grateful to J. K. Rowling for her creation of Harry Potter. Those books alone have roped a whole new generation into a love of reading that they will carry with them throughout their lives.


Read to your children. That is a gift that costs nothing if you borrow books from the library and little if you buy them yourselves. Those readings are magic to the young and cherished memories for the old. Fostering a love of reading is a gift beyond price. For me, it has been a life-long love with very happily-ever-after memories.