Thursday, November 6, 2008

To the Farm

When I was a little girl, my parents drove us to Grandma and Grandpa’s house a lot, sometimes two or three week ends a month. I was the oldest of four, my sister is two years younger than me, and my brothers arrived two and four years later respectively.

I loved every moment spent at the farm but the trip from Kansas City to Union Star was another story. When we traveled on vacation, our parents always encouraged us to set up and watch the country going by. We played all the typical car games but we also searched the landscape for white horses ~ the first one to yell out “Zip” won a point ~ this was our own personal family game. As we drove the same route to the farm so many times, we kids came up with a different strategy; we made a game of who-can-fall-asleep-first. Now that I think about it, I bet my Dad came up with this idea, but we realized that it made the tedious two hour trip seem so much shorter if we could sleep through most of it.

With four of us in the back seat, staking out a territory to call your own was always an issue. Often my brothers would curl up on either side of the floorboard, possibly sharing this space with our little dog Frisky. But the most coveted spot was the back deck ~ that carpeted space above and behind the back seat where the rear window curves down to meet the trunk of the car. Either curled into a ball or folded nearly in half, there was enough room for a skinny kid to ride up there in our blue Chevy Impala. The only down side of this location was that you may arrive at your destination grumpy from the heat and resembling a baked meatloaf. However, for the duration of the trip you had traveled above the reach of thirty annoying prodding fingers, and that was a good thing.

As we neared the farm over the last final hills whoever was awake would strain to catch sight of the familiar white buildings and then begin the singsong chant, “I see Grandpa’s house. I see Grandpa’s house.” As each napping child came to, they would sleepily take up the tune, even though their eyes were still closed. By the time we rolled into the driveway of our farm we were wide awake and ready for our next adventure.

* annette

No comments: