Don't make me turn        this car around! by Judy Halone Judy@judyhalone.com

Car rides part 3   

   Isn’t it funny how someone can bring up a topic we haven’t thought about in years, and suddenly, it invokes so many memories?

   Like the lazy afternoon car rides mentioned here recently. We’ve moseyed along the shores of Michigan’s Lake Huron with Grace Marshall and imagined the chocolate taste of a Buster Bar on my family’s Sunday drives to Camas, Wash. 

   During the latter, some of you might recall how Mom taught me silly songs that went something like this: “Mares eat oats, and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy.”

   Turns out I wasn’t the only one who had a tough time figuring that one out. Just ask Judene West.

   “Your last column brought back so many memories to me – Sunday drives with my family when ethyl was so cheap,” West wrote. Those memories included learning the same song.

   “You have to understand that I thought I was singing about a cute little dance in this song. I thought it said, “mar-se-dotes and do-se-dotes and little lambs de lively, a dilliy, divey do, wouldn't you?’

   “The funniest thing about this is here I am (years later) and I have only known the real words for about four or five years. I’d really like to be able to ask my mom if she laughed at me or if she just thought I was singing the right words,” West recalled.

   Then there’s a good friend of mine, Pam Johnson. She grew up in the Santa Cruz, Calif. area, where her family’s car rides took her to who-knows-where destinations.

“We were just supposed to take a drive around Sylvania, “Johnson said. 
   
   “We ended up in the weirdest places. One time, we went to a Dutch restaurant where the waitresses wore wooden shoes. And they poured water fancy, like raising and lowering the pitcher while they filled our glasses.” 

   Her rides didn’t end at the restaurant.

   “We once ended up in the largest Redwood tree that you can drive through,” she said. “We never planned where we were going. And we didn’t have seatbelts, so we (siblings) put the back of the seat down and lay down on the covers. We could color or sleep while my parents sat in the front and talked. Dad said, ‘let’s go for a drive’ and we knew then it’d be hours before we’d be back.”

   Thanks, Judene and Pam, for reminding each of us that something as simple as a ride in the car can create some pretty fun memories. 

Next week: Remembering Mom. 

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Judy Halone (judy@judyhalone.com) is a member of the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association and the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. Copyright © 2008 by Judy Halone.

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