The Lonely Drive

The transfer is always hard--the part of a visit where both grandmas drive to a midpoint in Indianapolis and transfer the grandson.

This time I was on the giving side, saying goodbye in the parking lot of Starbucks and leaving quickly with little more than a grande coffee and a few broken animal cookies in a circus box. 

There was no chattering from the backseat during my drive home--the only sounds being the rattles from my car, which I worry may be ominous but tend to ignore, and the occasional voice of Rush Limbaugh as I searched for radio stations to distract me. I wasn't in the mood for outrage and kept searching until I found an appropriate sound track for my tears.  

He turned 18 months old this visit, an age that found him mimicking and adding new words at a pace rivaling how quickly I now forget them.

He arrived with just the basics--Mommy, Daddy, Abbey (his dog) and cookie.

I got blamed for that last one. He went home from my last visit saying it loud and clear. And so often that Alex visualized all my meals void of the fruits and vegetables that she had requested--a pile of cookies forming his sole food group.

I did better this time. He was transfered with a vocabulary of useful words like "up" and "down" and "train" and "truck" and "bus" and "cheese." And "achoo," which could come back to haunt me since his version sounds a little too much like asshole. Time will tell.

We enjoyed a few new treats too. Like ice cream. But I'm a quick learner. I never once used the word. He just says, "mmm, mmm good." 

And he says "nemaw," his version of grandma. 

Mmm, mmm, good, indeed.

George and Patricia

    Jim and I were at the marina at Lake Mattoon this summer getting registration stickers for a new paddleboat.  I was waiting in the car while Jim went inside to fill out the paperwork when I noticed a red pickup truck parked nearby.  An older woman (and by older, i’m meaning someone who looked like she graduated from high school at least a few years before I did) was sitting quietly in the passenger seat.  Nothing unusual about the woman, nothing unusual about a truck with a boat hitch at the marina, nothing usual about the truck itself--except that written on the side of the passenger door was simply the name “Patricia.”

    Shortly thereafter, an older man wearing bib overalls (and by older, I’m meaning someone who looked like he graduated from high school at least a few years before JIm did) came out of the marina office, climbed into the truck, and drove away, but not before he did a three point turn that enabled me to read what was clearly written on the driver’s side door of the truck.  That door simply said “George.”

    Now, I can’t swear that the couple in the red truck were Patricia and George, but I’m guessing they were.  And I don’t really know anything about the erstwhile Patricia and George.  I don’t know if they’ve been married a long time, if they live in Neoga or Mattoon, if they head out to Lake Mattoon to fish or if they just like to putter around the lake on a little johnboat.  I don’t know if they dote on a couple of grandkids or cheer for the Cardinals.  But I’m pretty sure that there are some significant ways that they are different from Jim and me.  

    Every year when Jim and I sign our income tax forms we trade off who gets to sign on the first line as Signee and who has to sign on the second line as Spouse, even though it’s been years since there’s been a W2 form with my name on it attached.  I’m guessing that Patricia and George don’t have that debate.  Every time Jim and I head to the car to drive somewhere, we look at each other and ask, ‘Want to drive?’  (And since I tend to drive a bit faster and Jim likes to read, I usually end up in the drivers seat.) I’m guessing that Patricia and George don’t have that conversation.  And I’m pretty sure that there’s not a car at Patricia and George’s home that has ‘Patricia on the driver’s side door and ‘George’ on the passenger door.

    George and Patricia reminded me more of my late parents’ generation than my own.  Although my parents didn’t have a pickup truck, and although there weren’t any names painted on the doors of their Chevy sedan, it was always a given that if they were going somewhere together that Marshall would be driving and Leslie would be in the passenger seat.

   Maybe it was that resemblance to my parents but I was touched by George and Patricia.  It’s not uncommon to see names on pickup trucks in Neoga, but those names are almost always male.  Sometimes, those names have ‘and son’ added on.  But hurrah for George, who, although he clearly wanted the drivers seat, also clearly wanted the world to know who he wanted by his side!

   As, for over fifty years, did my Dad!