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Wet Like Seals

I never wore a seat belt when I was a kid. Instead, we flopped around the back of the car like cutthroat trout on the bottom of a boat. And it was there, behind the back seat in my parents’ station wagon, back with the sleeping bags and suitcases, that my older sister told me she was from another planet. She was sent here, she said, to observe. She would not harm us, she said. She would, in her role as a sister, tease from time to time, but only to fill her role as sister.

I didn’t believe for one minute that my sister was an alien. When I laughed and said I didn’t believe her, well, that just made her mad. See. She was really my sister after all. Would an alien care one way or another what I thought?

We were driving West. California. I remember we sang “This Land Is Your Land” and listened to old radio programs like “Fibber McGee and Molly” that my mom had checked out from the library. I was eight years old.

The car didn’t have air conditioning unless you count rolling down the windows. It was the middle of the summer. Hot, hot.

In Nevada we stopped at a gas station. It had a cafe next door. That was back in the day when you’d roll up to the pumps and tell some kid “fill ‘er up.” So we rolled in to the station and my dad told the kid to fill ‘er up and we all went inside and I drank a Coca Cola for the first time in my life.

It was cold inside. You only had to be in there five minutes before you kind of wished you had a coat. Chilly for a few minutes, sure, but when we left, I mean the second we walked outside, the chill vanished in a soft wall of crushing heat.

My dad told us to follow him. We walked around to the side of the gas station and he took a water hose and sprayed us all down. Back in the car, dripping, happy, wet like seals, I heard my dad tell my mom, “Fellow inside said it’s 114 in the shade.”

Jump ahead. 2009. Now, I’m driving. Now, I’m looking back in the rear view mirror and seeing my two boys there in the back seat. They are strapped in. Car seats and buckles. They joke and tease. And sing. They’re singing a song I taught them.

There’s a girl downtown
With freckles on her nose
Pencils in her pockets
And ketchup on her clothes
She’s a real nice girl
Pretty as a plate
The boys call her Katie
When they ask her on a date
And who knows, Katie
Maybe you could be the one.

It’s a small moment. Simple and, for me, beautiful. So when my family celebrates Thanksgiving this week, I’m going to be thankful for driving in a car with my two boys. That, and air conditioning.

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Song lyrics by Hayes Carll
……

A friend of mine asked me to write an essay for her new blog that you should check out. That’s why this was written. Each week she posts short little essays like this from people she knows. I thought I’d make my essay all Thanksgivingy. And I like how it turned out so figured I’d post it here, too.

Happy Thanksgiving.

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