Exhibit G: Our Cars

The vehicles my family owns are accessories to their weirdness.

The first car I can remember is our old red Chevy Nova.  It had plaid upholstery.  Like this:


Me in my carpet coat.

Yes, that is a sibling's behind in the photo.  They are climbing onto "the shelf".  The most coveted spot in the car for travel. Perhaps not the safest.  Luckily we appear to have travelled with a foam mattress for extra padding.

What I remember most clearly about this car was that if you lifted up the mat behind the drivers seat, the floor had rusted through, leaving a baseball sized hole.  It scared me a little, but I loved lifting the edge and watching the road zipping by inches away.

Around this time we also had a truck.  Seen in the back ground here (along with what looks like a random axle elegantly decorating our front yard).  I don't remember wearing those awesome overalls.

What I do remember is the hours spent sitting in the curve of it's enormous steering wheel and rocking back and forth.  Often when I get in a car now, I eye it's steering wheel and think "I wonder.."

I am almost tempted until I imagine explaining to the firemen why they need to use their jaws of life to extricate a thirty something year old from her steering column.   My other memory of this truck is the tons (literally) of cow manure we shoveled from the back of it onto my mother's vegetable garden over the years. 

When I lived in this house, my grandmother lived with us.  She drove a Chrysler Caprice Classic.  I remember this because of the way it was beautifully written across the maroon dashboard.  I wanted to write like that some day.  Here she is getting into it behind our pyramid.

The notable thing about this car is it was the one that sat unused and unusable in our yard for many years, earning us full redneck status.

My dad's motorcycle.  This was the best thing ever.  Sometimes when my dad got home from work he would put one of us on the front.  Place his enormous helmet, which functioned more like a paperweight than a safety feature for us, on our head and zip off around the vacant lot across the street.  I don't remember my mother ever riding, but apparently she dared to sit on it once.

The Datsun.  Ah, the Datsun. 



 How to travel in comfort and style:

1. Throw a mattress in the back of your Datsun pickup.

2.  Use old cardboard boxes for suitcases.

3.  Drive 1500 miles with your five children in back. 

Guaranteed to be a vacation they will never forget. 

Other vehicles of note:

-Pooker's first car.  I don't have a picture of this.  I wish I did, because it was unbelievable.  It was some kind of hatchback.  It had been primed, but not painted, so most of it was a matte gray.  Except one door, that had been purchased to replace the former one, it was bright red.  And someone had spray painted 10 life-sized stencils of President Lincoln's profile from the penny in random spots all over it.  This was the car he drove me to and from junior high in.  The embarrassment lives with me to this day.

-Our club wagon van.  I don't remember driving in this even one time.  It sat in our driveway and functioned as a playhouse.  I don't think it ever worked.  Despite Sneet's mechanic skills.  My mom assures me that it functioned for one trip to Yellowstone.  It also had a rusted out hole in the floor, which we covered with cardboard so no one would get hurt on the way.  The cardboard caught on fire because it was too close to the manifold.  After some brief panic, we just ended up throwing the cardboard out the window. 

 



-The Ford Crown Victoria Wagon.

This car served us well for many years.  Usually transporting more people than it was designed for.  My notable memories of it are driving with my best friend's family and my dad put a sign on the window that said "11 kids...not all mine" because so many people were trying to count.  And the time Beadle fell out the not fully fastened back door and almost got run over.   

-Nana's current vehicle.  A smart car.

 





-My parent's overwhelming devotion to their current Saturn.  Which they claim, through some tinkering, gets 40 mpg. 

But truly, what can you expect when you started married life with this?

A sweet Scout 80.

And some killer sunglasses. 

You can only go downhill from there.



Character Witness: Regarding My Mother: The World's Most Excessive Worrier

Now, please don't imagine that this will be my only post about Slugweirta.  This is simply one of the many facets of her weirdness.  My mother is a worst-case-scenario expert.  She can outfret anyone.  On the planet.  Here are a few examples of what I mean.
When I was eight, shortly after the gum incident, I began to notice that I had two weird raisin-sized bumps on my chest.  I mentioned these to my mom.  She gave me a cursory visual exam and deduced that it was likely a very rare case of bilateral juvenile breast cancer.  She made me an appointment with the pediatrician post haste.  I was understandably terrified.  He got us in as soon as possible.  On the day of the appointment, I remember sitting on the bed in the doctor's office while my mom explained the problem to the nurse.  I have to applaud her professionalism because she didn't laugh even one time.  Although she was a little at a loss for what to do.  The pediatrician doesn't typically do breast exams.  So, after having me remove my shirt, they wrapped my chest in paper towels to maintain my decency.  The doctor, who also happened to be my neighbor, determined that I was starting what appeared to be perfectly normal, if a little premature puberty.  Thanks, Mom.  First breast exam at eight years old.  My adolescence was off to a fantastic start.
Once, can it be this only happened once?  Probably not.  Multiple times when Pooker was late coming home from work, Slugweirta called the police to see if he had been in a fatal car accident.  When no accidents were reported she had them issue an APB.  Usually they don't do this when the person is eighteen and has only been missing for an hour.  BUT, she convinced them that he was disabled (he had a mild speech delay) and might never be found if they didn't look for him now.  He might never make an unplanned grocery stop again.  This assumption that anyone who's late is probably dead continues to this day.  Which is a huge problem with my perpetually late family.  If Nana doesn't call her on her way home from work, she will drive the route from her work to her house looking for car wrecks.  I would think that much anxiety could kill a person.
Beadle once asked Slugweirta what first attracted her to my dad.  Her response was she figured if anyone was likely to survive the next ice age, it was him.  Always planning ahead.  For global climactic change.

Ice Age Survivability: 87%

My mother, who was not alive during the Great Depression, is always assuming another one is around the corner.  She is very careful to have no debt.  An admirable trait.  She plants a vegetable garden big enough to feed an army.  She keeps everything.  In fact, she is constantly living as if it is already the 2nd Great Depression.   Her dream is to be entirely self sufficient.  Which is why they bought the home they did.  It has it's own well.  A strong selling point for everyone.  Right?
Slugweirta is a psychologist.  So she is constantly looking for any sign that we might be developing a mental illness.  I think that much stress might give me one.
When I told my mom I was expecting my first child she said, "oh no!"  I'd like to think this was because she had really difficult pregnancies and was worried about the next uncomfortable nine months for me.  But the truth is she was really thinking, "oh no! one more person who might spontaneously combust if I don't worry about them constantly."
I appreciate the concern.  Really I do.  My wish for Mother's Day is that she will spend the entire day worry-free.  Happy Mother's Day, Slugweirta.