He Would Have Been Horrified

Friday night I stood in the ice-flecked, bitter air at a truck stop in very rural Iowa. The wind that blew across the concrete from the wide open and fallow corn field beyond was cutting. In the brief minutes it took me to finish operating the gas pump and wait for the receipt, I heard my grandfather’s voice in my head at least two times.

“Are you prepared for the road trip?”

“Have you checked everything?”

 

Maybe there were a few more of his comments bounding around my frozen brain. He spent his career as a Missouri State Highway Patrolman. He not only loved a good road trip – as I was on that day – he spent most of his career working the highways and back roads of central Missouri in a car. He didn’t teach me so much about cars mechanically, but what safety on the road really was.

When I was in college at Mizzou, I made trips to Chicago to visit my boyfriend (now husband) many times in my 1983 Honda Civic 1500 S. Thirty years ago, at lower speed limits, it was a rock-solid eight hour trip. Time meant nothing to me and my passengers. Well, not time of day or daylight. We would leave for a weekend just as soon as we could on a Friday and not get into the car in Chicago to return until midnight on Sunday night – a time chosen because it was exactly eight hours and forty minutes from the start of my geology class.

He knew about these trips. When I saw him during this time of my life, he would drop hints like, “Sweetie, have you checked the tire pressure lately?” or, “How’s your washer level?” I visited him and my grandmother often. One, because I loved them with my every fiber, and two, because they lived in Jefferson City, which was only thirty-five minutes from my dorm. A hot meal and great love was a short ride away.

Any deficiencies in my car upkeep was dealt with in the carport right off the kitchen. Extra jugs of washer fluid were always on hand, and I knew exactly where it went. His son-in-law may have been my chief teacher of all things under the hood, but my grandfather’s eyes shined with pride when I knew to pull the dipstick, wipe it, and place it back before pulling it again for the “real” oil level reading.

I had checked my car tires before leaving Friday morning. I checked the gas level. (Oil level and the like are now the purview of the dealership that leases me my car. I trust them.)

 

 

Travel safety was my grandfather’s ultimate goal. He always wanted me to have a few bottles of water in the car in the winter. A blanket would be nice. “Pretzels keep nicely,” he would mention. Of course I had harnessed a AAA card in my wallet, a birthright of all his descendants. Cell phones were not of his era, but I now have one.

 

 

He would have been horrified at the conditions last Friday evening. Rain was changing to snow. The temperature had dropped fifteen degrees in less than an hour. It was dark. We were still two hours from home. The highway I was on was familiar but not memorized. I was not wearing socks. There was no water in the car. Heck, I didn’t even have a winter coat with me. Quite possibly, his first born great-grandchild, who was in the car with me, was coatless as well.

 

 

An angel swooped in on us when I bothered to try and swipe the salty road crust off the windshield while idling at the truck stop. I had pulled forward from the pumps so my dear friend had a shorter walk from the restroom. Nothing came out of the sprayers. My husband jumped out and purchased a gallon of the magic blue water like he was jet propelled.

 

 

I am wise enough and have been happily married long enough that I did not jump out of the car to help my sweatshirt-clad husband find the reservoir in the thirty degree wind. He did just fine, although he utilized one choice cuss word.

 

 

I would have so loved to see my grandfather’s smile had I been the one to remove the big black cap and place it for safe keeping in the track of metal to the left formed by the fit of the hood to the body of the car. Far away from moving parts. Safe and secure.

p.s. These photos were taken Friday when we drove to and from Kansas City, Missouri, to Des Moines, Iowa, to eat pizza that we meant to eat last March on another road trip. It’s a long story, but the pizza and friendship were divine. Much love to my friend and travel buddy Sherry Jackson, who remembers my grandfather well and enjoyed many a meal at their home when we were in college. You can read about the trip that birthed this one here.

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