Thanksgiving Traveling

Driving the day before Thanksgiving has always been a dreaded task to me. However, it seemed to me this year returning was more hectic. For the first three hours almost every half hour I came across an accident. The interstate was fully loaded with college students, families, and anyone else visiting for the holidays packed in their vehicle trying to return home as soon as possible, like myself. However, some may have been in too much of a hurry, hence the collisions.

First, it astounds me how slow everyone insists on moving to rubberneck towards the carnage. Can you not gawk traveling 50 to 60 mph. Second, use the left lane as the passing lane. If you are not passing then you are in no need to be in the left lane. Third, if you are going to pass then pass and move on. It is always a test of patience when I am behind someone who acts like they will pass the vehicle beside them, but instead sit at the same speed causing traffic to build up. Fourth, if you are being passed to not be offended causing you to speed up making it impossible to pass creating bottle-necking.

During my driving I found it particularly interesting how many mini vans and SUVs most likely transporting children had DVD players. On several occasions when a vehicle passed inside I could see small monitor screens, sometimes on in each passenger sear. I felt left out. All I had was my CD player to keep me company.

We truly have become a TV induced society. Do kids not read, color, or fight in the car anymore? As parents, have we allowed principle to become so inconsequential that we will throw mindless images as a trance for the children in order to keep them quiet? What happen to music to sing along or games, like I Spy (my family actually had Travel Scrabble), What is wrong with the sibling rivalry of punches and "Thats mine," and "Get out of my space?" Do parents talk anymore to their kids to find out what is important? It may not be the most stimulating conversation, but the child will appreciate you care.

My favorite pass time on long drives was listening to stories. A radio program that my sister and I loved call Adventures in Odyssey provided moral lessons to learn and imagery for the imagination. Then there were Garrison Keillor's stories from Lake Wabagon. From Keillor's descriptions I could always envision the Great frozen Lakes and massive snow drifts. I could imagine a summer night on a wrap-around porch sipping ice tea surrounded by the smell of freshly cut grass and home grown tomatoes in the garden. But are children able to create any such imageries anymore. Too busy hoping for Christmas to receive a Playstation or cell phone that matched their purse or an Ipod that can hold 50 hours of songs and movies.

But now I am sounding too much like Dana Carvey's Grumpy Old Man: "In my day we didn't have cars. We grabbed four brats that behaved the worst and strapped boards to their backs and made them run on all fours moshing like wild wolves as we road on top. In my day if someone slowly moved in our way hogging the road we shot them. We hung their bodies in trees upside-down by the ankles, placed a sign on declaring them as disturbers of the peace as "Slug Pugs," And thats how we kept the children entertained. Non of this X-Box nonsense or chatting on the phone. You wanted to contact someone you screamed from the top of your lungs till you started wheezing from lack of oxygen eventually loosing your voice. If you wanted to play games you thumped your brothers and/or sisters until all your bruises made you look more like a disfigured grape. Who ever had the biggest deepest whelps won. If the kids did not behave they were roped up and dragged behind where they became too dirty and unrecognizable. Most often they were lost and/or forgotten becoming wild hethens howling at the moon, eating crickets and ground worms, often going half mad, AND WE LIKED IT!"