My west coast brother made a comment today in his text that reminded me of an incident that happend to me about 20 years ago. My brother said that he was taking his grandson to school. It was a late-start Monday and that's 'just something grandparents do.' That's for sure.
His comment reminded me of an incident that happened about 20 years ago involving me and all four of my grandchildren. I was semi-retired at the time and therefore had plenty of time to drive my grandchildren to and from school. I was still being chauffer when the four of them were in middle school and high school at different times for a variety of reasons.
The incident I'm blogging about today happened when my grands were quite young, two in early elementary school and two in pre-school. I don't remember the exact circumstance but one afternoon I was driving all four of them home from school to my house where they would have a snack and play until their parents came to pick them up. At that time I owned a Buick Rendevous with three rows of seats so I could manage this quite nicely. For some reason, which I don't remember, the four started squabbling and bickering and shouting at each other. All four of them got involved. I asked them, in my teacher voice, to quiet down, settle down, please be quiet, but they kept on. Finally I told them that if they didn't settle down I was going to stop the car. (This was a little like saying "I'm going to count to three." but I had to try something.)
They didn't settle down so I pulled the car off the side of the road and turned off the engine. Then I just sat there. Gradually it dawned on them that I really had stopped the car. Then total silence. For some reason my pulling into a parking lot and turning off the motor seemed really terrible to them. The rest of the drive home was very, very quiet indeed.
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