Most of what I remember of family vacations growing up was being stuffed into our station wagon with all five kids. We’d fight over who had to sit on the hump in the middle of the back seat, who had to be crammed into the rear (car seats were unheard of), and who got to ride in the back window. Aside from getting carsick from the sun baking you to a crisp through the glass, the back window held the most potential for excitement on an otherwise boring road trip. Occasionally my father would have to stop fast, which would send whoever was riding in the window barreling off into the floorboards of the back seat. If we happened to get off the interstate onto a back road, he would zip up the hills so we’d catch a little air in the car coming down the backside, stomachs flip-flopping, better than a roller coaster.
My father liked to make good time. Inevitably, when we got to our destination, usually our grandparents’ house, he and my grandfather would use the first half hour of our arrival to discuss this very thing. “Took the bypass around Atlanta and saved about 40 minutes.” “Yeah? You coulda come up through Birmingham instead.” “Tried that last time. I think this way was faster.” And on and on. And on.
Maybe it was knowing this analysis was coming that made him averse to stopping along the way. The man has a bladder of steel. In a car with five women (my brother doesn’t count–he was still in diapers), you’d think he would have gotten accustomed to having to stop more than once every six hours. He’d be burning up the miles, passing all the ying-yangs that obviously had nowhere important to be when one of us would send a covert message up front to our mother that worked something like this: Kid in window taps back seat sister on shoulder. “Tell mom I have to pee.” Back seat sister’s eyes widen and she leans forward to tap middle seat sister on shoulder. “Kid in window has to pee. Pass it on.” Eventually mom would get poked on the shoulder and a quiet jerk of the head would indicate that She Who Shall Not Be Named way in the back has to go. You could see Mom’s shoulders sag a bit as she’d cough and try to start up a pleasant conversation about how it had been awhile since we stopped last and maybe we should start looking for an exit.
This could go on for a bit until finally my father would heave a loud sigh and glance in the rear view mirror towards the back of the car, his roving eye seeking out the culprit. We all avoided eye contact and pretended to be reading. Once we’d pulled over, he’d stand by the car as we all piled out and raced in to the filthy gas station restroom, trying to beat each other to the one stall available, knowing this could be the last mercy we’d receive for several hours. Once we got back on the interstate, my father would grumble each time he’d pass someone he’d just passed 30 minutes ago, all his progress unraveled by weak female bladders.
My little brother got carsick once when he was about two. Knowing my father’s reluctance to stop, and being a 14-year-old teenager who thought the whole thing was totally gross, my sister’s answer to that was to dangle my brother out the back window as he threw up all down the side of the speeding car. Her hands gripped his legs while my mother screamed from the front, “Don’t you let go! Don’t you dare let go!!” A quick drive-through car wash at the next gas station, and problem solved.
So you’d think I would have learned from all this. You’d think, but no. One Christmas, my mother-in-law and I arranged to take Savannah to the Belle Meade Mansion for a fancy dress-up Victorian holiday tea. It was lovely. We learned etiquette, walked the grounds, nibbled dainty cookies, and drank a lot of tea. It came time to go, and Savannah and I got in our van and started off through Franklin towards home. It had gotten dark and I remember thinking I probably should have gone to the restroom before we left, but the drive wasn’t that long.
I didn’t count on George Jones. I’m not a country music fan, but we are practically a suburb of Nashville, and if you live around here, you’ll eventually encounter some country music star in one way or another. For years, George and his wife Nancy decked out their home in Franklin with a massive Christmas light display, and the public was free to drive by, get out, and take pictures. As we neared the Nestle Down Farms entrance, the two-lane traffic started to slow, then creep, then halt altogether. “Uh-oh,” I thought, as my leg started to jiggle. “Not good.”
This road not only has no shoulder, it has an anti-shoulder, with dark, brambly ditches on either side where critters with sharp teeth and shiny eyes probably lived. The way we were traveling, we were going uphill, so there was no visibility for oncoming traffic on the other side of the hill. Passing the backed-up, stand-still Christmas light gawkers was not an option. From the dark back seat, my daughter announced she had to go to the bathroom. I’m not above using the side of the road when it’s an emergency, but not in bumper to bumper traffic with oncoming lights spotlighting your private moment. Time passed. No amount of leg jiggling would suffice any longer. I looked frantically around the car for something, anything we could use. There! Savannah pulled an old red solo cup from under the back seat. I told her she could unbuckle and try to go in the aisle of the van. Desperate, she complied. I rolled down the back window and she emptied her cup onto the road where we sat, unmoving. My turn.
I was in the driver’s seat and didn’t want to abandon my post in case we ever started moving again. It could be any minute now. Having birthed two very large babies, my anatomy was not what it used to be and my poor bladder had strained to the breaking point. I put the van in park, struggled out of the constricting tights I had on for the fancy tea (Tea! I couldn’t even think the word!) and tried to half stand up out of the seat, while acting normal and casually waving to the oncoming cars. I was afraid their lights would reveal the desperate state I’d been reduced to. At last. I filled the red solo cup in my seat. But I had had a lot of tea, and it had been a very long time by now. My cup overflowed. Down the crack of the back of the seat, where years of lost coins and cheerios lived. Out the back and onto the carpet below, soaking stray hair ties and kids’ meal toys. Savannah held her feet high in the air. There was no stopping at this point. I couldn’t quickly empty the cup and start over–there was no time! Nature called, and this was a natural disaster.
Savannah yelled. I screamed yet still casually waved to the oncoming traffic, my skirt bunched under my armpits to save it from the flood. Yes, yes, move along. Nothing to see here. Oh, and look! Traffic started to move! My right hand shifted into drive, while my left hand held the useless cup, and I gently pressed the gas pedal with my tiptoe. Finally, blessedly, it stopped. I rolled down the window and emptied the cup as we moved, Savannah’s window in the back now sprayed with well, you know. I managed to grab as many stray napkins as I could reach and stuff them into the back of my seat so I could sit normally again and drive like a sane person.
As we passed the entrance to the subdivision, where cars snaked down the road to the Jones’ residence, Savannah said, “Look at the lights!” Yes, look. Look what the cheery little Christmas lights had brought us to. I was no longer feeling festive and just wanted to get home to take a shower. The van grew silent. I told her we would never speak of this. When we finally traded in our child-trashed van, I admit I did not fully disclose what had happened in the driver’s seat. (My apologies to any future owners, but I did try my best to chlorox it thoroughly.)
George Jones died a couple of years ago, and last I heard the house was up for auction. No more dazzling light display to back up traffic for miles. Every time I pass that subdivision in Franklin, I think about that desperate night in the van, which gets me thinking about my little brother being hung out the car window, and I realize that, at least for our family, it must be just part of life. You’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do. A dose of humility is good for the soul, right?
Oh My! What else is there to say in response to this clever admittance of being humble and retrieving our own memories!