Rambler’s Note: This article appeared previously in a September 2019 edition of “The Greenville Advocate”. Although it is a “travel” story, it is a far cry from what we usually write about in the TLR blog. It is a “feel” good story, so read on if you need an uplifting tale. If not, do not pass go, do not collect $200, and simply go on the next day trip story. LOL.
I have been through many “rites of passage” in my 70 years and I realize that I may have just gone through yet another one this week, but one that I never pondered much until it was about to end.
As life usually goes, sadness and happiness run side by side. My ending is tinged with a bit sadness, but correspondingly, it is a happy time for my 16-year-old granddaughter and her friends, who will soon be able to drive. At that point, the need for a granddad becomes significantly less and my importance will diminish.
For the past two years, as I attended Comets’ out of town football games, I have had what I would call a “posse” of bubbly pre-sixteen-year-old girls to accompany me on nearly every road trip. You can see them “in action” in the photo above.
They may think this was a great inconvenience for me and maybe their parents have fostered that idea to maintain some leverage with them, but quite the contrary is actually the truth. It has been my privilege and such a delight, that I hated to see it end with last week’s road trip to Gillespie. (Confession time: I’m somewhat selfishly hoping for a deep run in the play-offs.)
No, the state won’t permit them to all jump into a car for a road trip the way we did back in pre-historic times (the 1960’s) and that’s probably a really good idea. (One of the few good ideas ever emanating from Springfield.) But they can travel in pairs and there are boyfriends beginning to loom on the horizon and that means I may have become obsolete.
The neat part is that we have done this often enough, that I have sort of become “part of the furniture”. They sometimes forget that I am even there or maybe think I’m too deaf to hear them (partially true).
They talk about all kinds of issues in their lives and I just listen. You can learn a lot about a generation by listening to them. Unfortunately, I probably have had more time to listen now, than I did with their parents. But I have observed that most of their “stuff” was the same stuff their folks had to work through and that I dealt with in the ‘60s, with some exceptions. It’s still about love, hate, dating, gossip, music, clothes, hard teachers, hair and make-up, etc., plus the next big event.
Making a statement with their style and appearance is still an important way to express individuality, even though in the end, it seems to me that are all wearing the same uniform. Some of the temptations have changed though, usually with more dire consequences.
So, as I lament the end of this special time in my life, and maybe theirs too, it will be pressed in my mental memory book for all eternity. I remember that this is the same granddaughter, who after she was born, led to The Wife and I deciding that we had to move back home from a stint in Iowa to be around and watch her and her older brother grow up.
And to try and be the type of grandparents we had grown up with. You know the kind: the ones who lived just across town or on the next farm down the road and who went to watch all your football games even though they didn’t know the difference between a pigskin and a pig pen. Four hundred miles away was just too far to allow us to be the grandparents we envisioned being.
I remain hopeful that I may still get that call for a ride from time to time. And they have kindly assured me that they still want to do this next year but I’m a realist if nothing else.
When all is said and done, I’m still the better alternative than having to go somewhere with their parents: one of the attitudes that hasn’t changed from one generation to the next. And I’m cheaper than them having to buy their own gas. So, I do still have some attributes that are very appealing to teen-agers.
But, as a consolation, and just in case we never travel together again, I will still make the pre-game meal stop at McDonald’s and the return drink stop (Observation: We need more Starbuck’s in the SCC.) And I will occasionally reflect fondly on my time with the “posse”.
Thanks girls, for allowing me to be a small part of your lives and for all of you being in mine.
