Yesterday's Random Stranger asking me if "it was the driver" triggered a memory that I feel some way about, so I thought I would share and make some long, long overdue apologies.
As with most siblings, my brother and I went through quite a long period of not liking each other much. We loved each other, and I am confident that at any time, my brother would have had my back against pretty much anything, and I know, with certainty, that I had his. Mostly. I was the little sister. I had a tendency towards 'brat' a lot of the time. When I was sixteen, my brother joined the Army, and when he left for boot camp, it tore my heart out. We discovered that we liked each other a lot more than we thought. Or, perhaps, *I* discovered how much I liked him and he just kept being him? At any rate, we weren't in the same state for months at a time, so I wrote him letters and he called me and our relationship grew to a more adult sibling/friendship situation. When my brother came home on leave, I tried to hang out with him as much as he would allow. We usually weren't engaging in a ton of wholesome activities. There was usually beer. There were definitely cigarettes. There was always music. And there were laughs for days. Our parents were maybe a little bit oblivious, because he was my older brother, and they counted on him to keep me in line.
On one such occasion, Joel was home on leave and we, along with our parents, were invited to meet our grandparents in Bruno, Nebraska for dinner at the bar. If you've never been to Bruno, well......it's pretty much just a bar. There may be a church, but I can't confirm that. The bar served food. My grandparents liked to go there to eat occasionally. Somehow, on this particular occasion, we drove separately from our parents, them in the truck and Joel and I in the car.
In the mid 90's, my parents owned a four door, navy blue Chevy Celebrity and a black and red Ford F-150. My dad mostly drove the truck and my stepmom drove the car. Dad's truck wasn't shared often. So as a teenager, I mostly drove the car. The Celebrity had, at one point, an arm rest that was removed in the middle of the front seats, resulting in there being two small metal armrest holders exposed to an unlucky number of people who either sat in the front seat or caught elbows, purse straps, grocery bags, etc on them.
So, Joel and I set forth on a miniature road trip to Bruno in the Celebrity. Something important to know about my brother- he didn't like driving. So, I was behind the wheel, despite not actually knowing where Bruno was located. No matter. That was minor. I had my brother, his unique sarcasm and sense of humor, a warm early summer day, loud music on the radio, a full pack of Marlboro Reds, a bottle of Dr. Pepper and a light heart. We were cruising, a favorite activity of mine in those days. Windows down. I was feeling good. When we turned off the highway at the sign that directed us to Bruno, we turned onto an unfamiliar gravel road and, no doubt, cranked up the tunes a little louder and kept on keeping on.
As is often the case with young drivers, I was going too fast on a road that I didn't know. You know how sometimes you drive over a small bump in a gravel road and it makes your stomach do that little flippy thing? We did that a few times. We laughed about it every time. It felt like we had been driving for a long time, and I was starting to wonder if we had missed a turn somewhere when I entered an intersection of gravel roads whose elevations did not match up and I accidentally launched the navy blue Chevy into orbit. We came back to Earth with a loud crunch, and a yell from my brother. I was in stunned silence. I had not intended to visit Heaven, but I bumped my head on a cloud. My brother let out a string of Not Safe For Work Words and yelled for me to PULL THE......HECK....over. I complied, absolutely mute.
We got out of the car on the side of the gravel road, no other cars in sight, and my brother took a long drag from a cigarette. I walked around the car to be sure that all of the tires were still attached. Joel checked the road for errant car parts. He laid down on the road and checked the underside of the car for leaks. The entire time, we said nothing. I sheepishly asked him if he wanted to drive. Unbelievably, he said no. He climbed into the passenger seat and lit another cigarette. I sat behind the wheel for a minute and gathered myself together. I don't remember the rest of the drive to Bruno. I just know that we got there in relative silence. When we parked out front, I discovered that, in landing, my (high-waisted) jeans had gotten caught on the metal piece that once held the arm rest, and had ripped. Luckily, at that point in my youth, I was a member of the No Flannel Shirt Left Behind Movement, and I grabbed the one I had tossed into the backseat and tied it around my waist in the hope that no one would notice my jeans.
Joel and I entered the bar, quickly found our parents and grandparents, and took a seat. My legs were still shaky. I ordered a Dr. Pepper and Joel a Mountain Dew, and we said our hellos. No one questioned why I needed a flannel on a 80 degree day. We sat through dinner, never making eye contact. I was secretly panicking that he was going to tell my parents about our brief foray into working for NASA. He said nothing. After dinner we returned to the car, again astonishingly, my brother declined the driver's seat, we headed for Wahoo and whatever awaited there. About halfway home, my brother started to laugh. We cackled the rest of the way back.
So.
First and foremost, all apologies to my brother. I don't know what to say. If you called forty-ninty-six right this very minute and told the whole truth....I couldn't possibly blame you. I'm so glad it didn't all end for us on a county road somewhere between Saunders and Butler Counties. That we lived to grow up and get married and have kids of our own who, with any luck, will not attempt to launch themselves off the planet. I....I'm just......sorry, man. That was all on me.
Sorry to Jeff Bezos and anyone else who thought they were the first private citizens to leave Earth, but you were not. Joel and I did not need a penis shaped rocket to leave the gravitational pull of the Earth. We did it in a late 80's model, four door Chevy Celebrity with a missing arm rest. I had a cigarette in my hand the whole time. Pretty sure he was mid-sip on a bottle of Mountain Dew. And all it cost us was the gas money my dad gave us before we left. ($10, if memory serves.)
Sorry to my stepmom, who had to field the question of what she had been doing in her car when my dad changed the oil and found scratch marks on the undercarriage. I would have confessed, but I am a notoriously big chicken shit and I wanted to be allowed to drive the car again. (And months later, ditch it, ALSO unbeknownst to either of you, and you ALSO had to answer for THAT when dad checked the tire pressure and found weeds stuck to the bottom of the car, and angrily asked if you had been off-roading.)
Sorry to my Guardian Angels, who probably had a migraine from the time I was sixteen and a half until maybe last week?
Sorry to my kids. I am the reason I do not trust new drivers. It's me. It's been me the whole time.
Whew! I feels so good to get that off my chest!
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