We had not planned a vacation this year. With our oldest child heading off to college, we thought it best to hold tight to every dollar. But the lure of the open road tugged at us. My wife and I have always believed that a change of scenery is good for the soul, and the chance to be with our five kids outweighed the cost. We understand that travel is as much a luxury as attending college is a privilege. But, still. Both travel and education, if done correctly, mean growth.
Our family zeroed in on New Orleans as the destination for a four-day trip. The Crescent City is an eight-hour drive and filled with colors and noise very different from Little Rock, and we knew we could do it on the cheap. With discounted hotel reservations in hand and a car-top carrier strapped to the roof of our SUV, we loaded four of our kids into the Suburban and waited on our oldest to get off work. It was 3 p.m. on a Saturday when he pulled up and we knew we could make Jackson, Mississippi, for dinner and an overnight stay. Seating arrangements were argued over, music negotiated, and pillows handed out. I looked at my wife in the passenger seat and she smiled at me. The rear-view mirror reflected the life belted into our back seats. I smiled back at my wife and said what I always say when something interesting is about to happen, "The adventure continues ..."
Kate, our 7-year-old, complained about her tummy hurting just 90 minutes down U.S. 65. She gets carsick easily, so she was instructed to look out the front window and concentrate on the horizon. We coaxed a child-sized dose of Dramamine down her throat and she dozed a little. Problem solved.
But, to the west, storm clouds were swirling in a dark-gray dance punctuated by lightning arcing across the sky. All we had to do was make it to I-20 and turn east, away from the storm's path. I pushed the gas a little harder
and the car shimmied. I let off the gas and it swayed. I pushed the gas again and the shimmying increased.
I'm no mechanic, but I do know a car isn't supposed to shake like a paint mixer when the accelerator is hit. I turned to my wife. "Have you hit a curb or anything lately?" She answered, "I hit stuff all the time. Have you seen this car? It's like driving a bus." But it still seemed worse than just being out of alignment. The shaking was unsettling.
As I used every bit of my nascent automotive assessment knowledge and took another quick look at the storm still swirling in the west, my daughter woke up and said, "I don't feel good." Sitting between her 16-year-old sister and 18-year-old brother, she looked small and pale. And then, with volcanic power, she got sick. My quick-thinking 14-year-old son grabbed a Kroger sack and thrust it at her. We swerved into the Eudora Community Center parking lot and jumped out as if we were covered in ants and had to get them off. Poor Kate sat in the back seat alone, smiling, as her siblings fled the scene. I climbed to the roof to retrieve clothes from the carrier. The wind had picked up and the clouds continued to build. I heard my 10-year-old son say, "Is that a pit bull?"
Trotting toward us was a squat, powerfully built, mottled pit bull. The animal had slobber dripping down his face as his powerful legs carried him forward. More disturbing, however, was the fact that he had broken free from a strong metal wire that had tethered him to his home. I knew this because the metal leash was sticking up from his collar like a naked flagpole. The dog had chewed through it.
We love dogs and left two behind for the neighbor kids to feed and water. But this dog was alarming. From the roof I yelled for everyone to get in the car as the dog approached. I climbed from the roof into the passenger door while my wife jumped into the driver's seat. I then heard, "Good boy ... that's a good boy ..." I looked to see my 14-year-old son reaching out to pet the pit bull. Through clenched teeth I told him to get ... in ... the ... car ... now. Both boy and pit bull looked at me passively.
Climbing in and shutting the door, he sat down and my teenage daughter said, "What do I do with this?" It was the Kroger sack. Being the chivalrous father that I am, I told her to hand it my way. I held the bag out the open window and my wife drove to the dumpster behind the building. When she started moving, the pit bull started following. She gunned it to get around the corner and away from the menace. Sliding to a stop in loose dirt at the dumpster, she told me to hurry. I informed her there was no need. Her quick escape had caused the bag to spray along the side of the car. The kids howled.
The thunder and lightning were growing in intensity and we needed to head east fast, so my wife turned us back onto U.S. 65, and the fields of Arkansas and north Louisiana flashed by. We passed through the old homes in Lake Providence, the shuttered school in Transylvania, and the poverty of Tallulah before we made our way east onto I-20. Kate was asleep again and the storm was behind us. There was nothing in our way.
Then the car started shimmying again. We pushed through the old battlefield town of Vicksburg and had Jackson in our sights when the car started wobbling. The tire pressure sensor screamed that we had a low tire that was quickly becoming flat, so my wife took the first exit she could find, just two miles short of our hotel. We pulled into a gas station and I added air to the tire only to hear it whistling like a World War II bomb being dropped. An older man in overalls was standing nearby and he told me there was a 24-hour tire repair garage just around the corner. My wife always has the best luck. I've asked her to purchase lottery tickets or go to Las Vegas because her luck is so good, and here she was driving off the interstate within blocks of the only 24-hour tire repair place for miles.
The garage looked like a movie set for a horror film. Dirt floor, tools strewn everywhere, a fluorescent light flickering. A heavily tattooed young man with a long ponytail and partially shaved head approached the car. "Need help?" I showed him the tire and he got to work lifting the car off the ground--with wife and kids still in it. Somehow, in a 24-hour tire repair garage, he couldn't find his tire gauge. He used a hammer to get the tire off the rim.
He stopped and talked to a buddy who walked in out of the dark, which was disconcerting since no car drove up and the garage was in the center of what appeared to be a swamp. After patching the tire and filling it with air, he placed it back on the car and I asked how much I owed him. Very politely, he said, "Is 25 bucks okay?" I realized that despite his tough looks, despite his scary garage, despite his cuss-word-laden tattoos, he was a nice guy. I gave him $25 in cash and a little more as a tip, then asked if he wanted a cold beer. I handed him a Corona and he said, "You got any Bud Lite?" I sighed.
The tire patch was miserable but we made it to our hotel in Jackson. I walked up to the desk with my wife and all five kids, bags slung over our shoulders and distress written on our faces. I had reserved a double queen suite with a pullout sofa to fit all seven of us. I had even made sure they knew we'd be arriving late.
"I'm sorry sir, all I have left is a king room, no suites." But I made reservations, had a confirmation number, and even informed the hotel I'd be checking in late, I implored. My wife and daughters started giggling. Then my sons. The hilarity of the moment was escaping me, though. My wife said she was going to find the laundry room and if I needed her to go nuclear with the reservations clerk, she was just a shout away. The smile and calm delivery sent a chill up my spine. I think it also sent a chill up the clerk's spine because he quickly found us two suites; one would be free of charge.
The next morning, my wife dropped her cell phone in a bowl of cereal, and the tire was hissing like a dropped bomb again. Alone, I headed to a Firestone that was open on Sunday and spent an hour and a half waiting on a new tire. Filling up with gas, I decided to empty the water out of the ice chests and add some new ice. When I lifted the back hatch, one of the chests came tumbling out. All of the contents were spilled on the ground in front of the gas station. I noticed a sign on the store ice bin that read "out of order." With hands on my hips, I shook my head. Then came the revelation that not one beer bottle had broken. Not one jar of peanut butter had cracked. Not one bag full of deli meat had split open. Things were getting better already.
New Orleans is a seedy town, but the culture and history were exciting to my family. Our hotel was a mile from the French Quarter and cozy. We read every historical marker we could find, waited in line to get beignets, ate at Felix's Oyster Bar for dinner and Acme Oyster House the next night. At one point, my wife and I were talking about the history we have together and how we've never wasted a moment of our marriage when we suddenly heard gagging. Sweet Kate had been dared and bribed by her older siblings to eat her first raw oyster. With $12 on the line--we have no idea of that amount's origin--she choked her way through the task and threw her hands up in celebration.
We waded in and out of the ghosts of old New Orleans. We went on an airboat tour of the south Louisiana swamps and held an alligator. We watched the U.S. World Cup game at Manning's Restaurant and sat by an Alabama basketball recruit and his family. The young man was as polite as he was athletic, and I heard his father tell my wife that he's proud of his son but that his son is going to school for an education. The father told my wife that if he sees one basket-weaving class on his schedule, he'll yank the boy home.
By the end of the fourth day, we were dead tired of the New Orleans scene and ready to leave. Homeward bound we went. Kate talked the entire way, never once getting sick. We stopped in Vicksburg to see the battlefield and to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches by the Mississippi River. Four hours later, our car pulled in front of the house in record time.
While those in small families have the luxury of intimacy and attention divided into equal parts, those in big families walk around like they are all in on the same secret--and that secret is that a circus lurks around every corner and a carnival can erupt at any moment.
Each family has its mountains and its valleys, its quirks and its shining stars. But to relegate what a family should look like to a cookie-cutter pattern would sell short the divine aspects so evident within. To reveal those personalities, culture, and ambitions, simply load up the car and drive.
Steve Straessle is entering his 10th year as principal of Little Rock Catholic High School. He is publishing a collection of essays and articles filled with his experiences this fall.
Editorial on 07/27/2014