A Captive Audience

My mom worked when I was growing up. I would walk to my grandma’s house after school. while there, I would lean against the round naugahyde ottoman and watch Room 222, The Brady Bunch, Marcus Welby, MD, and Gilligan’s Island. When it got dark outside, grandma would begin cooking dinner and mom would be there to pick me up.

I remember that, although our house was less than a mile away, it took us a lonnnnng time to get home.

Mom loved to take the scenic route. We would drive around town and drive slowly past our favorite houses. If the curtains were open, we might e en go around the block and drive by again to get a better look in the windows.

We weren’t looking at the people, we wanted to see the color of the walls, what decorations the people had, Mom would have on the radio to the pop station.

As I got older, these adventure rides would occur when she picked me up after cheerleading practice or from my boyfriend’s house.

As I learned later, there was a method to her madness. You see, your child or teenager is a captive audience in a car. They can’t leave. You can talk at them, quiz them about school drama, or try to glean the latest gossip.

Once, when I was in 6th grade, we were driving past a favorite house. It was a white two-story across from a beautiful park. We had driven by it many times. I saw 1n 18-inch sign in the yard that said “House For Sale”. As I mentioned, we drove around the block and did a second drive-by.

Now, my kids have adopted this habit.

Last year, Kadon (as a Senior) would drive Aubrey (7th grader) to Walmart to do the family’s weekly grocery shopping. I always thought it was interesting that they had to leave at 12:00 and didn’t return home until 2:30. Come to find out, they were driving around town…taking the scenic route to the store and back. They looked at houses and explored the byways and random streets in our small town.

Kadon is away at college now. I know she misses him. But I think she misses the car time together,

There is something special about spending uninterrupted time together in a car. The music plays softly in the background until a favorite song comes on and you crank it up to sing along.