Today's topic: Car Stories

Car stories:

• driving from Bainbridge to Whigham with no brakes
• piling eight people into my MG Midget convertible and putting a hole in the gas tank when we hit a bump
• putting Mom's LTD into the ditch after play performance; having to pull it out with Larry's dad's tractor and NOT telling Mom about it; apparently, the messed-up alignment told on me. Stupid alignment!
• the check engine light coming on in the Prius because the gas cap may not be completely closed, but it's not just a check engine light. It's a "stop driving now and report to a dealer" light. What the 'ell?
• coming out of school to find that my Midget had been moved. The guys in gym class thought it was fun to pick my car up and move it, so I never knew where I would find it. Sometimes it would be sideways. At least they never took it out of the lot.
• getting pulled over from weaving in college. I could tell the cop thought I was drunk, but he erred. I weaved (only slightly) because I was removing a full-body slip while driving. Let me just say that I did an excellent job. Impressed with my dexterity and seeing the slip pooled at my feet in the car, the nice policeman let me go without even a warning. He just suggested I pull over to strip next time.
• driving out to the Big Oak on weekends for bonfires in high school
• driving to my grandparents' house in Odum, Georgia; that always seemed like the longest drive in the world to me. We had landmarks along the way: the three bumpety bridges Dad sped up for (which are no longer there), the meat store in Patterson where we turned to hit the backroads, the lake with the brown substance that clung to your skin when you got out, the dirt road turnoff to my cousin Wanda's house (I LOVED to stay with her), and Dent Road, the road named after my grandparents--I guess when you have sixteen kids they name roads after you
• losing control on back roads from Climax and almost ending up in the ditch on my way to Tallahassee for graduate classes
• driving Grandmother's Galaxy 500 to Mama Cox's house once we turned onto the road past Jet's house
• before Grandmother let us drive her car, she'd let us slide right beside her and practice steering
• riding the tractor with Dad when he mowed the back pastures at Grandmother's house; several kids crammed onto the tractor, loving the experience
• arguing over who got to drive Grandmother's Snapper to mow the yard because driving was driving and any practice counted
• driving go-carts at Uncle Elton and Aunt Delia's house and being thrown out of one when riding with my cousin Ricky--I tumbled halfway across the yard, I think
• my cousin Tom teaching me how to ride a motorcycle on the back trails behind Grandmother's house; he was probably five years older than I was, and when I got in front and he sat on the back, I took off, popped a wheelie, and we both went flying. After that, I think he ran beside me when I tried to drive.
• riding in the Thomasville Rose Parade as Miss Whigham on the back of a cool convertible and going home to watch the tape to see me on the screen with "Miss Whigham, Donna Mayberry" scrolling underneath. My name was Donna Newberry, but I liked Mayberry too.
• riding the bus to school and back, waiting at the corner of the trailer park in Delaware with snow all around
• riding with my parents in the snow in Delaware and sliding across the road

Gosh, I'm just not finding a story I want to tell, but we live so much of our lives in cars now--commuting to work, going out to eat, going on vacations. Dad used to pile the kids into the car around four a.m. when we were going on vacation so that he could drive for several hours in peace. He'd wake us up around seven or eight to eat breakfast at McDonald's, and we'd be only a few hours away from the vacation. I loved those trips. It makes me wonder, though, how obnoxious we must have been back then. Probably pretty bad. I remember the complaints to Mom and Dad about each other and the trying desperately to find a comfortable position in the pre-seat belt law days when we sprawled wherever we could.

"Hey lady, what you doing?" I hear in the hallway and wonder how that conversation will end.

I know it was a completely random thought, but I had just looked at Ansley, and I guess she prompted the random thought or the attention to the random conversation in the hallway.

Okay, enough rambling. Let me see what others had to say.