I think we can all generally agree that we spend a fair amount of our lives in our vehicles, either as a passenger or a driver. I shouldn’t have to play the role of the dutiful (former) librarian and provide detailed statistics proving that you have, in fact, spent your share of time in a car. That being said, unless you’re “an excellent driver,” as Rainman put it, among other flawless fellow drivers, you’ve traveled always alone, or you’ve never so much as sustained even a minor scratch to the paint job, we all likely have a great deal of stories to tell with our vehicles as a setting or, perhaps, as a participant, as it were. I know I do, some merely humorous in hindsight, others a wonder that I lived to tell the tale.

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“ISFJ’s live in a world that is kind.”

That is, in part, how a Myers-Briggs interpretation describes my personality, which, incidentally, is the same type for 4 out of 5 of my immediate family members, my brother the odd-man-out by only a single character. It should, then, come as no surprise that we all chose “helping” professions, namely, nursing, ministry, social work, and public librarianship. Due to this trait, we weren’t a home composed of a great deal of tension or in-fighting, though we kids had our moments, as all do.

Even kindness, however, can be taken a bit too far. 

“Back in the day,” as the saying goes, my parents would pile the three of us kiddos into the back seat of the sedan to travel for any and all purposes, including road trips. One of these found us on the bumpy, poorly-maintained stretches of pavement in Arkansas, from which my mother’s extended side of the family tree hailed. At some point in the lack of an electronically-stimulated passage of time (I forget such a period when we Gen X and earlier generation kids were left to figure out how to entertain ourselves), preteen me asked for the map (I likewise forget a time when road atlases and those pesky paper maps that you could never return to their perfectly folded, compact state were a travel essential, not to mention, more importantly, the ability to navigate; oh, how you’ve ruined us, Google Maps).

As I grasped the map in the back seat and studied it carefully to get a fix on our route, a random housefly buzzing about decided he likewise needed to know where we were bound and landed on the corner, ostensibly likewise to gain his bearings. Rather than test my reflexes and instinctively extinguish his life with a rapid swat, my characteristic Myers-Briggs altruism kicked in, and I determined it best to give this germ-ridden insect a chance at his brief and filthy yet God-given life, but just not in our vehicle. Moving with all the patience and subtlety of a brain surgeon, I lowered the window a smidge with my left hand and with my right guided the map to the crack of open air. My plan, as it were, was to allow the aerodynamic gust to yank him out and let nature determine his fate. What I didn’t plan on was, like an unwitting magic trick gone awry, for the map to vanish into thin air as well, either due to the same current of air or to the fly’s resolve to take the map with him as a final act of revenge. Either way, both the fly and the map disappeared with a “Woosh!” as I sat stunned, dad shortly thereafter asking, without a clue as to recent events, that we return the map to him. Terror-stricken, I remained silent as my traitorous brother, who had stoically observed my ridiculous actions from curious beginning to tragic end, broke the tension and instead returned to him a delighted explanation of the events, brief as they were, that had just transpired. Needless to say, I would not be handling any more maps for the foreseeable future.

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Texas is a big state. For its expansive square mileage alone, it surpasses more than its share of countries spread across the globe. It is, perhaps, no wonder there are still those out there who pridefully believe it should be on its own. One of the best tongue-in-cheek descriptions of its large, varied regions I’ve ever come across is the dark comedy and true story “Bernie,” in which a momentary scene in a diner features a good-natured local codger breaking the third-wall as he shares, among other things, about the “pine curtain” of East Texas, the “carcinogenic coast” near the Gulf, and, as he finishes up, “of course, I left out the Panhandle, but a lot of people do.”

The only place, I would argue, that feels as desolate or sleepy as the Panhandle or West Texas is probably Central, as in Abilene and surrounding spreads. It was there that I attended college in the pleasantly modest town of Brownwood (not, mind you, to be confused with “Brownsville,” many miles south at the border of Mexico). I spent the standard four-years there studying for a B.A. in Christian Studies at the equally modest yet high-quality institution of Howard Payne University, an experience I still wouldn’t trade for anything. Sting ‘em Jackets.

While I didn’t have a car, I did have friends, and they were happy to let me bum rides off of them when needed. On occasion, this involved leaving town, such as one weekend to DFW during my sophomore year for a weekend college retreat with other Baptist Student Ministries (BSM) leaders both from our beloved school and others like ours. As with many students, a high-priority was placed on activity and a low-priority on sleep — inadvisable, as we would later learn the hard way on the return trip.

Rather than stay a second night and return on Sunday, a few of us opted to leave late Saturday evening. The driver of ours, a freshman, offered myself, my future brother-in-law, and another friend to ride back with her, with the caveat that I ride shotgun and make sure she stayed awake. That should have been a warning to stay put until sunup, but it was left unheeded, and we all piled in for the 2 1/2 hour return.

As you edge closer to central Texas late into the evening, the spaces between tiny patches of civilization tend to expand, the two lane roads become void of traffic, and the headlights of your vehicle provide the only illumination of the world outside — nothing more than the long, monotonous road stretched far into the vacant distance ahead of you. Fatigue is anything but a friend under such conditions as the black night and white noise of the road relentlessly tempt your heavy eyelids to shut down for the day. My friends in the back seat had already given up the fight as I struggled hard in the front, periodically bobbing back to life as I caught myself slipping.

In between nodding off, I noticed the car drifting to the right. I should note that we were traveling close to 70 mph, though not another vehicle was in sight. Nevertheless, the drifting continued as I had enough presence of mind to alert our driver by speaking her name, at which point she roused, corrected, and apologized. All was seemingly right with the world once more and we continued on our way, never slowing.

It wasn’t to last. I can’t recall how much time had passed after this, but soon the drifting again commenced as I once more attempted to regain her attention, to no avail. Before I knew it, the right side of the car was speeding along the shoulder and now into the grassy edge as I shouted her name and realized in desperation that I had no recourse but to reach for the wheel — at which point she startled awake, reflexively jerked and overcorrected, forcing us into a violent, high-velocity spin.

I remember everything that happened at this point, and I should since I was the only one alert for the entire heart-stopping drama, in spite of the mere seconds that transpired. For a fraction of a moment, I caught a glimpse of the opposite lane through my window and expected another vehicle to plow into me as the first victim, but, thankfully, there was no one but us on the road. As we continued to careen out of control, the headlights then revealed not lined asphalt but tall grass, then a grating metallic screech, followed, finally, by a wide, empty and endless patch of soil as the vehicle jarred to a stop.

As we regained our wits, everyone checked in and was found without injury, and the car, remarkably, appeared to have survived as well. The next question was, of course, where in the heck were we? Our best guess left us in a plowed but unsown field. The grating noise we heard was likely the snap of the barbed-wire, now to our right, the road we just escaped directly adjacent. There was nothing but to try and use our forced entrance as egress. So, our driver turned the car around and drove along the edge of the field, revealing, to our chagrin, unbroken fence line as far as the eye could see.

All of us puzzled and now faced with a new problem of finding ourselves trapped in a random farmer’s patch of dirt, I volunteered to step out of the car and walk in the opposite direction to see if I could solve this most peculiar mystery of the magic fence. As I trudged carefully back the way we came, the headlights eventually revealed a patch of grass flattened but not destroyed by tire tracks the approximate width of our vehicle’s axles. Nothing else along the fence offered any clues, but there was one minor problem — though this was obviously the spot at which we burst into the field, the fence, by some miracle of physics, remained intact and in-place. We had entered at just the right speed and angle that the wires stretched, scratched the surface of the car from stem to stern, and then popped back into place to complete the illusion.

Now, I ask you, what would you do? Well, what we did is scratch our heads and prayed for a miracle against a miracle. And we soon received our answer in the form a 4-door Ford pickup driven by our college acquaintance Kendal, traveling back to school from the same retreat. As he approached, he observed a vehicle where it wasn’t supposed to be and, thankfully, slowed to investigate. Recognizing his unmistakable pickup and gait, we shouted back and forth in acknowledgement and asked if, by chance, he had a pair of wire clippers. Well, of course, he did, as he ran back to the truck to retrieve them. After a few snips, we escaped the farm and were on our way, committing to memory this spot so that we could return in waking hours to offer the owner an apology and whatever else he needed as a remedy to the damage we’d caused. Needless to say, we all remained fully alert and awake for the rest of the trip home, myself rattled and slightly traumatized at the reality that this all could have ended very differently.

All but our driver willingly returned the next day to confront the farmer and his wife as we shared our tale, promising to provide whatever he might require. We left our numbers since he was learning of this for the first time and was unaware he had need of any repairs. He took the news with all the gravity and stoicism of a Vulcan as we departed.

We never received a call from the farmer, which may be just as well. I was happy to put the incident behind us, and our driver never spoke with any of us about it ever again. I, for one, am grateful events unfolded as they did, considering the number of pastures we passed that were populated with livestock blithely slumbering away. “The night we spun into a field” could just as easily have been the tale of “The night we killed a cow with a sedan.”

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Middle school is hard. In my humble opinion, only junior high is harder for all of the awkwardness, social or otherwise, though for most school districts today the two are one and the same. I entered at the height of Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” anti-drug campaign directed at the nation’s public school students. The ISD of the refinery town of Texas City, where I was raised, took it upon themselves to capitalize on the expectation that those who chose the high road and refrained from substance abuse would be met with ridicule. So, they encouraged that such kids simply own it and fashioned their own version of Nancy’s effort with an unforgettable but equally unfortunate acronym one also stood a favorable chance of reading on a pub menu: the “C.H.I.C.K.E.N. Club.”

The character traits outlined in said acronym were as follows: Cool, Honest, Intelligent, Clearheaded, Keen, Energetic, and Not-interested-in-drugs. Never mind that the final key trait was, well, not a single word, as the others. It was, admittedly, a bit forced, but no matter. Every club member (which, incidentally, included every student; no opting out of this one), received a bright orange, sore-thumb of a t-shirt emblazoned with both the acronym and a confidently strutting farm fowl to communicate to peer-pressuring junkies that the wearer had no interest in their stoner habits. As much as the presentation opened itself to rejection, it must have done its work. I never touched an illegal substance during my public school tenure and couldn’t have told you where to find them. Still can’t. It wasn’t until many years later in my late-20s as a graduate student and commuter that I first found the need to summon the admirable qualities of an abstinent C.H.I.C.K.E.N.

In between studies of the stimulating science of librarianship, I earned my keep as a media lab supervisor in an osteopathic medical school library late afternoon to midnight on weekdays. The commute to Fort Worth from Arlington, where I rented an apartment with my brother and a college friend, took roughly 30 minutes one-way. On rare occasions, I might grab a late lunch or snack before heading that direction. So, on this particular day, I pulled into the McDonald’s off I-20 and Cooper with the sole intent of efficiently slipping in and out and on my way to work.

As I began moving toward the exit, I was approached by a young man who, by all appearances, could have passed for a similar background and station in life as myself. After a customary greeting, he explained his situation. He left his keys at a nearby apartment where he had attended a party the previous evening and needed a ride to pick them up. Seeing little reason not to trust either him or his story, I agreed to run the errand for him. Though amiable, he seemed slightly on edge, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt. So, off we went.

As I followed his directions, he continued to gab incessantly and animatedly, the edginess rising ever more to the surface. The destination, as it became evident, wasn’t around the corner, so to speak, as I was led to believe, though it was still within city limits. He segued as we approached into an explanation about a “prescription” both he and his mother took, stopping short of the method or means of administering said pharmaceutical.

At last, we arrived. I was asked to park in a retail lot, not at the apartment complex across the street, where he ostensibly had attended the party. Thinking my sketchy act of humanitarianism complete, I watched as he hopped out, then asking that I wait to return him to the McDonald’s. And with that, he ran across the street and disappeared into the complex.

I should have put the car in gear and driven away. Instead, I called my supervisor and explained that I would be a few minutes behind, recounting the stranger’s story as it was shared with me. My supervisor then briefed coworker Yvonne, a middle-aged, no-nonsense black mama who I then overheard instructing that I get my naive, over-trusting behind to work where it belonged instead of allowing a stranger to use me, clearly, to meet his nefarious dealer.

I hung up as he made his way back to the car. As we departed, he made yet another request. The “prescription,” it seemed, required unique hardware, which required a lighter. Would I mind if he quickly administered it?

For once, I found the gumption to put a stop to this and asked that he do no such thing. Oh, it’s nothing, he explained, and then proceeded to produce a small glass tube, an unidentifiable white substance, and, as they say, “put it in his pipe and smoke it.” It was over in a moment, as he insisted again he was finished and I had nothing to be concerned about. I had never been more eager to get rid of a passenger, and soon enough we had found our way back to where we began. He left, and I gladly never saw him again.

My first and only encounter ended almost as soon as it began, but it felt far too long for comfort. Fortunately, there were no passing “po-pos” that day to pull us over and cuff me for possession. If I had to do it again, perhaps I should have kept the middle school club shirt for just such unplanned encounters. If the anti-drug message didn’t steer him away as he approached, the garish, unsightly orange chicken certainly stood a chance.

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I could tell as well of a minor fender-bender I sustained one morning while making a quick run for donuts before taking the kids to the neighborhood elementary, the only year they all attended the same school. After the “bump,” as one of them referred to the sudden stop upon rear-ending the SUV, she inquired calmly on behalf of the others if we had just had an accident. Seeing all were well, I consciously maintained my own sense of calm and patiently responded that we had, expecting them to mirror my placid response. Nope. As if a switch had been flipped, they all received the information and proceeded to howl in panicked despair. There would be a couple more “bumps” in the next five years, I confess, our middle the only one in the vehicle present for each of them. By the time the third occurred just outside of our neighborhood, there was no wailing but, carrying a preteen seasoned veteran of “bumps,” I heard behind me only a terse and incredulous, “Really, dad?”

Our oldest will soon be acquiring her permit, and I feel little anxiety over it, unlike my wife. After all, it means ultimately simply more freedom both for us and for her. Fortunately, she’s exercised care and caution when we’ve practiced, so I’m confident she’ll do well. Perfection eludes us all, however, so I’m certain she’ll have her own stories to share once on the road, and I look forward to hearing them all.