Category: parenthood

Staring at the Wall

On By Sarah AngletonIn Art, History, parenthood7 Comments

On August 22, 1911, artist Louis Béroud intended to spend his day at the Louvre, working his way through mimicking the paintings in one of its many galleries. He’d chosen Salon Carré, the room in which a small 16th century painting by Italian Renaissance polymath Leonardo da Vinci smirked from behind glass between Antonio da Correggio’s Mystical Marriage and Titian’s Allegory of Alfonso d’Avalos.

Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

When he found an empty spot where the Mona Lisa had been on display for more than a century, he didn’t initially think much of it. At the time, there was an ongoing project to photograph many of the paintings in the Louvre, and several had been removed from their display locations temporarily to capture better lighting on the roof. 

The portrait had been the focus of critical attention in the art world for about fifty years at that point, as an excellent representative of Renaissance oil paintings, but outside that circle, the world hadn’t really given the Mona Lisa much thought.

That changed the moment Louis Béroud thought to ask one of the security guards when the painting might be returned, and the guard discovered that the painting hadn’t been taken for photographing at all. It was missing.

I love listening to his list because he finds all kinds of bands I’d never heard of, but that I absolutely love.

A thorough search of the museum didn’t turn up the painting, nor did nearly two years of investigation. The story became a fascinating true crime mystery and made the Mona Lisa, with its curious half smile and uncertainly identified subject, one of the most famous paintings in the world. It also made the empty spot where it had hung the most highly visited blank gallery wall in the world.

It’s that part of the story that I find most interesting, that people came in droves to stare at a vacant bit of wall. Of course, I don’t know why they all came. Maybe they were hoping to find clues or at least understand the circumstances of the crime a little better by putting themselves in the space. Maybe like the Instagrammers of today, people just wanted to seem interesting at parties because they’d taken time to be there, and obviously they’d always known that the Mona Lisa was an important work of art.

But lately, as I see the social media posts of so many grieving friends sending their newly grown up kids out into the world to college, or the military, or apparently in one lucky young man’s case, a gap year European tour, I tend to imagine that the crowds came to the Louvre as an expression of grief that they couldn’t quite make sense of and couldn’t quite shake off.

I imagine all those parents are catching glimpses of, and maybe even intentionally visiting, bedrooms once occupied by the children they never fully understood until now just how much they would miss. For me, it’s not the room so much, though it is sad and empty, but the Spotify list that I can’t stop listening to because it makes it sound like my youngest son is still at home.

And then there are just some fun surprises because he’s kind of an old soul.

I realize this is not a perfect analogy of course, because at least I hope every parent who’s watching a son or daughter leave the nest, already knows their kid is a work of art that fills an important space in the history of the world.  

Thankfully for most, even though their grief is very real, their young adult children will eventually return home, at least to visit. Mona Lisa did finally turn up again and wound its way back to the Louvre. It had been stolen on August 21st, the day before Louis Béroud noticed it was gone, and a day when the museum was closed. 

Vincenzo Peruggia, an Italian man who had been employed at the museum, and helped install the glass that protected the painting, had walked out the door with it. The Mona Lisa’s almost immediate burst of fame had made it impossible for him to do anything with it and only when he attempted to fence the work two years later was he finally found out and arrested. 

Today, Da Vinci’s kind of cheeky portrait is the most visited piece of art in the entire world. Because when you get the chance to miss something, that’s when you truly understand how special the time you spend with it really is.

Down the Creek Without a Paddle

On By Sarah AngletonIn idioms, parenthood, Travel14 Comments

It’s been a big couple of weeks in the house of practical history. If you’ve followed this blog for long you’re probably aware that I have two sons. When I started this thing way back once upon a time they were pretty small, just starting school, giving me, their mommy, bits of time to devote to something like blogging about history and nonsense.

As children do, they’ve gone and grown up now. My youngest graduated from high school last spring, turned eighteen this summer, and left this week on a great adventure. I won’t go into the specifics because he is an adult with sole possession of his own stories. I will say that I’m really proud of him and I miss him already.

It was a beautiful trip.

My oldest son spent the summer away on an adventure of his own, returning about a week and half before his brother’s planned departure, and so as a family we decided to spend a little fun time together. We chose to take a quick getaway in the middle of the week to canoe down part of the North Fork of the White River in Southern Missouri. It’s a beautiful little river and the state has experienced plenty of rain this spring and summer. The occasional low spots one might sometimes experience were nicely covered over and the current was swift.

My husband and I used to be pretty experienced canoeists; my sons, not so much, but after spending the summer apart, they wanted to catch up and canoe together. No mother could say no to that. Of course, we as the the more experienced, took the cooler and strapped the dry bag to our boat.

They worked together really well, communicating through the tougher spots where rocks and debris made the steering (and staying dry) a little more challenging. Despite more experience and twenty-five years of marriage, we didn’t do quite as well. The problem wasn’t our lack of communication exactly. It was more our admittedly slower reflexes and slightly poorer eyesight that got us. And also a fallen tree that we didn’t manage to skirt on an outside bend the way we needed to.

The current was fast where it happened. When the canoe dumped, my husband managed to hold onto it and ride with it several bends downstream, while I grabbed onto the first thing that came to hand, which was the cooler. I clutched it tightly and rode the current, feet first, until I got to a place I could safely stop myself, very near where my husband had finally managed to bring the canoe to shore.

A couple of kind strangers helped him empty the water while our sons chased down all of the wayward objects that had once been in our boat. They found everything except for one paddle. The dry bag was still fairly dry, the cooler that had so beautifully kept me afloat, was no worse for wear, and they even managed to grab my favorite baseball cap that had been swept off my head.

I’m pretty sure this happened yesterday.

Other than a couple scrapes and bruises, we were unhurt, although the strap of one of my husband’s sandals broke during the ordeal leaving him with only one functioning shoe, and of course, there was the beating we took to our egos. That only got worse when shortly after the incident, our just grown sons decided that for our safety, they should each take one of us. And we agreed. Ouch.

Though I don’t think we were at any serious risk of injury in this shallow river, the reality was that for a few minutes there, we were up a creek without a paddle, a phrase that though surely older in conversation, began showing up commonly in American print in the mid to late nineteenth century.

So there we were, divided up between our children, my husband with only one shoe and me without a paddle, each being steered down the river by one of the boys whose lives used to more or less take the direction we chose for them. I suppose now we get to watch them navigate the currents of their own lives.

They were good boys. They are good men. I guess that’s just how life flows.

I’m okay. Mostly.

On By Sarah AngletonIn Education, parenthood21 Comments

It’s a big week in the Angleton household. Son number one is preparing to leave this weekend for his first college move-in day.

I’m okay. Mostly. I’ve never been one of those moms who wanted to keep my kids from growing up because I just enjoyed them so much when they were babies. I did, but to be honest, every stage has come with its own frustrations and moments of joy. I know this one will, too.

I look forward to seeing what this smart, funny, loving, messy eighteen-year-old with the whole world open to him does with his independence and how he will change and grow over the coming weeks, months, and years. And yes, I’m a little scared, too, to watch it all unfold.

Did I mention he’s messy? How he’s going to fit all of his stuff in half of a tiny space like this, I still don’t know. Sdkb, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

I still get sort of misty eyed when I think about the first time I dropped him off at preschool and he came home with knowledge someone besides me put into his little head. Driving away from him at college will be kind of like that, I imagine, only harder because I won’t get to pick him up three hours later.

So, we’ve spent this week organizing and packing, making sure he’s equipped with all the things he will need—extra-long bedsheets, a brand-new computer, and the best advice I have to offer. I did not, however, think to tell him what not to do in college. That is until I stumbled on a little book that pretty much covers it.

The book is The College Freshman’s Don’t Book by George Fullerton Evans, published in 1910. If you have the time and inclination, it is a pretty delightful read. As you might imagine, some of the advice is a bit dated, and I feel quite certain is fairly tongue-in-cheek. I doubt, for example, my son needs to be told to leave his fine china and Turkish rugs at home, and it’s unlikely he would choose to carry a cane or wear an excessively tall hat, which are frankly, pretentious things for a freshman to do.

But it contains some highly useful don’ts, too, such as:

Don’t pawn your pocket watch. That’s timeless advice. Charles Frank Ingerson. Public Domain.
  • “Don’t imagine that you own the College Town from the moment you strike it.”
  • “Don’t think that Exams can be passed without any preparation.”
  • “Don’t put off that long piece of written work till the night before it is due.”
  • “Don’t be surprised or disappointed, if you find you have neither time nor inclination to keep up with everything you thought you would, when first coming to College.”
  • “Don’t hesitate to hear other people’s opinions. The World did not begin, nor will it end, with you.”

I especially like that last one, and I sincerely hope it is a lesson my son will carry with him into the wider world.

There are two more pieces of advice in the book’s long list of don’ts that I find particularly important. They say this: “Don’t forget to receive your visitors as if you were glad to see them,” and “Don’t forget to write home once every so often. Mama and Papa are always glad to see the College-town postmark.”

Of course, I do stand a better chance of getting a text or call or even an email than an actual letter, which outside of mandatory thank you notes, I doubt he’s ever written in his life. But any contact at all would be nice. I hope a little enthusiasm when I occasionally visit isn’t too much to ask, either.

What I do know is that for all the don’ts that I hope he won’t do, my young adult son is going to do and discover and learn amazing things. It won’t be long at all until he doesn’t miss me nearly as much as I will still miss him. And also, I’m okay. Mostly.

Keeping Eggstra Busy

On By Sarah AngletonIn Holidays, parenthood, Traditions6 Comments

Lately I have discovered that life as the mother of a burgeoning adult about to graduate from high school and head off to college is busy. It involves college visits and research into housing options and fraternity opportunities. It requires increased organization and skillful prodding as the end looms ever closer and senior-itis casts long shadows over deadlines that threaten derailment of plans if allowed to pass by unanswered. There’s also the financial planning and the dogged encouragement to apply for just one more scholarship and the editing of essays penned by a person with little interest in revising yet one more time.

This was the egg hunt I provided for my children last year. Not long ago one of my sons asked if we were doing the same fun thing again this year. Mom for the win!

At our house it also includes long hours and dedication to a robotics team that will soon travel to compete for the second year in a row on the world stage, and the fundraising efforts that allow said team to take advantage of such an honor.

There are smaller senior trips as well and an upcoming last high school prom to prepare for. Graduation announcements need sending and a party needs planning and there’s family summer that needs scheduling around a new set of obstacles. And then there are all of the Easter eggs that need to be stuffed with treats.

This last one I thought was behind me as my children are both teenagers now and are not generally all that concerned about the Easter bunny. Alas, being the mother of a senior and also apparently somewhat of a sucker, I have found myself volunteering on the parent committee to throw a Grad Night celebration for the graduates.

In case you’re unfamiliar with Grad Night, it’s an over-the-top fun, all-night, drug and alcohol-free lock-in event designed to help burgeoning adults with not-yet-fully-developed brains celebrate and also avoid making stupid decisions that may get them hurt or worse on the night of graduation. Similar events are held all across the United States, including several very large ones at the Disney parks in both Florida and California.

Ours is not taking place at Disney World, but it will be fun. And it does take a lot of planning and an enormous fundraising effort to make it happen, which is why I find myself among a small group of moms, who are also suckers, busily stuffing thousands of candy-filled plastic Easter eggs.

Ozzie is not going to be helping deliver eggs, but he does make a super bunny ear model.

Because Easter eggs are a big deal.

People have been decorating eggs for millennia, predating Christ by a long shot, but the tradition of hunting for decorated eggs as part of an Easter celebration is generally traced to 16th century Germany, and possibly even to Martin Luther. Maybe. It does at least seem that eggs became a celebratory Easter treat largely because they were forbidden during Lent, and that Easter egg hunts, then, as now, were fun.

The tradition spread to England via the German-born mother of Queen Victoria who later continued egg hunts with her own children. In the United States, too, it was German immigrants who brought with them the egg hunt, which quickly spread across the young nation where eventually people figured out that eggs, while enjoyable to eat, are just eggs, but that hollow plastic eggs can contain candy, which is even more fun.

And then the idea for the Egg My Yard fundraiser was born. It’s turned out to be a really popular idea that finds me spending a lot of time mindlessly stuffing eggs so that my senior and I can don bunny ears and join with lots of other bunnies this Saturday to provide a fun Easter surprise for hundreds of families throughout our school district and surrounding area.

Image by Cindy Parks from Pixabay

It should be a great event. Grad night will be, too, and so will prom, and the robotics world championship, and the upcoming craft fair and two trivia night fundraisers that still stand between me and the end of the school year.

It’s a lot. But with the end of the year rapidly approaching, and the day looming when my burgeoning adult son will become a recent high school graduate moving into student housing and onto bigger and better things, I find I don’t really mind keeping busy.

Welcome to Adulthood

On By Sarah AngletonIn History, parenthood14 Comments

On July 5, 1971 then president Richard Nixon certified the 26th Amendment to the United States Constitution lowering the nation-wide voting age to 18. The move had been a long time coming, with arguments in favor of it reaching back to World War II when the age of draft eligibility was expanded to include eighteen to thirty-seven-year-olds. The primary argument was that if one were old enough to be pressed into service for one’s country, then one ought to have the right to vote for the government doing the pressing.

He has managed to grow more hair in the past eighteen years.

While in principle most people didn’t disagree with that sentiment, the push to make the change didn’t initially gain much steam. People in their late teens were still cared for in many aspects of their lives and at the time, weren’t generally all that politically engaged. Polls in the 1940s suggested that the youth population was kind of meh about the whole notion of voting.

That started to shift with the next generation who were paying more attention to politics throughout the Korean War and Vietnam Conflict. In 1965, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act that awarded the right to vote to all citizens eighteen and up. It was a bipartisan, fairly popular issue, but it also wasn’t constitutional.

It’s always been my rule that I don’t put pictures of my kids’ faces on my blog. I suppose now that he’s turning 18, I could bend the rule, but old habits and all. Just imagine a great smile, missing some teeth.

And so on March 23, 1971 Congress sent a new amendment to the states for ratification. It took one hundred days from Congressional proposal to presidential certification, the fastest ratification process of any of the twenty-seven amendments now included the US Constitution.

At that point eighteen was already considered the age of majority in many states, but after the 26th Amendment, it became almost universally so. There are still some age-related restrictions in some circumstances in some states, including two that don’t grant the legal authority to enter into a contract until age nineteen. But for the most part, unless you want to drink a beer or buy cigarettes, you are an adult in the US at age eighteen.

What this means is that this week my oldest son will register for the draft, register to vote, and eat birthday cake. If he so chooses, he could also buy a lottery ticket, parachute out of an airplane, get a tattoo, adopt a puppy, get married, pick up a bottle of cough medicine, serve on a jury, legally change his name, apply for a loan, obtain his commercial drivers’ license, become a notary public, have his tongue pierced, or get a job operating a meat slicer.

He’s gotten quite a bit taller through the years. He still has a great smile And all of his teeth have grown in.

He could also move out of his parents’ house, which he would probably have to do if he decided to pursue some of those things. It’s strange, though, as I look over the list of his new rights and privileges, I’m feeling pretty calm about it.

Though they have included some very long days, these past eighteen years have also been a short time to teach him everything he needs to know to be a successful adult. I’m fairly certain that I haven’t managed to do it.

I am, however, just as certain that in those eighteen years he has become a confident, intelligent, resourceful, and resilient young man. I know that when he votes, he will do so thoughtfully, that he understands enough math not to bother with lottery tickets, and that if he decides to jump out of an airplane, he’s wise enough not to mention it to his mother. I still have a few meat-slicer-related concerns, but all-in-all, I think he’ll bump along just fine.

Welcome to adulthood, E!  

The Oldest Senior Pictures Ever

On By Sarah AngletonIn Art, History, parenthood11 Comments

In 1936, family historian Alva Gorby published a book no one but her family was likely interested in reading. She called it The Gorby Family: Origin, History and Genealogy. It was, as she claimed in the introduction “a very enjoyable ‘labor of love’” that required many years of collecting family memories, photographs, and lore, chasing down records, and verifying claims.

Hannah Stilley Gorby. This maybe wouldn’t be the worst country album cover. Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Like any family genealogy project is bound to do, this one allegedly contains a few errors here and there, but it also includes something of great interest to the wider public beyond just the descendants of Samuel and Mary (May) Gorby. In its pages can be found a print of what is generally accepted to be the oldest living person ever photographed.

I should explain that further because there is a lot of confusion on the internet about just what is meant by such a claim. The photograph in question depicts a woman named Hannah Stilley Gorby, the second wife of Joseph Gorby, son of Samuel and Mary and it was taken around 1840, which would make it not the oldest photo ever taken by maybe about fifteen years or so.

If Alva Gorby’s records are correct, Hannah was born in 1746, making her in the neighborhood of 94 when the picture was snapped. Now, the woman was thirty when the US became a nation and ninety-four is certainly nothing to sneeze at, but there’ve been plenty of photos of people with more birthdays under their belts. Hannah wasn’t even old enough to get her picture featured on a Smuckers jar on the Today Show.

What Hannah Stilley Gorby can claim, however, is that of all the people ever photographed, she was first to have been born. Probably. Or at least maybe.

The problem is that the original daguerreotype of Hannah Stilley Gorby is lost to history and the most reliable support we have for the claim comes from the work of her amateur genealogist descendent who, let’s be honest, probably totally geeked out about her photographically famous aunt. I mean, who wouldn’t?

Probably not a very good country album cover. Image by Jorge Guillen from Pixabay

Because family history can be pretty geek-out worthy, like when you discover an uncle from five generations back who was a missionary physician with a pet orangutan and write a novel because no way can you make this stuff up yourself.

And family pictures are precious. I’ve been thinking about them a lot lately because my oldest son is now a senior in high school and we recently had a series of senior photographs taken of him. Like a lot of photographs.

We haven’t had the opportunity yet to sit down with my photographer friend to look through the proofs, but the shoot was amazing. My son, who was a smushy-faced newborn like yesterday, cooperated with every crazy idea (some of which he volunteered) from donning a suit and tie for a professional headshot to leaning flannel-clad against a fence post with his acoustic guitar in case he someday needs a cover for a country album.

I can’t wait to see how the pictures all came out because no matter what, I know they are photos of my more-or-less grown son, and are technically the oldest senior pictures ever of any of my children. That may not mean much to the general public, but you know that guitar pic is going into a family genealogy book one of these days for the benefit of my descendants, who will probably attempt to verify that he was a famous country music star.

Customs of Busy Parents

On By Sarah AngletonIn Books, History, parenthood10 Comments

I’ve just come up with a new idea for a book. It’s inspired by August Valentine Kautz, a general in the Union army in the American Civil War who had also served with the 1st Ohio infantry in the Mexican-American War, and with the 4th U. S. infantry in the Rogue River Wars and the Puget Sound War with the Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest in 1855 and 1856.

This man knew his way around a form. August V. Kautz by Mathew Benjamin Brady, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

As you can probably imagine, with all that military experience comes a big stack of paperwork. It turns out that August Kautz was particularly good at paperwork, but in the earliest days of his service in the Civil War in 1861 Kratz discovered, much to his dismay, that a lot of his fellow servicemen were not.

It wasn’t until a year or so later that he received an assignment in the 2nd Ohio cavalry division and managed to do something about it. That’s when he began distributing a series of circulars designed to instruct company clerks how to properly fill out their paperwork. This sounds to me like a good way to make people kind of want to punch you in the face, but Kautz found that most of his peers appreciated the guidance.

By 1863 he had found himself a publisher that churned out eight thousand copies of his 142-page paperwork instruction manual he called The Company Clerk: Showing How And When To Make Out All The Returns, Reports, Rolls, And Other Papers, And What To Do With Them. Despite the cumbersome title, of which this is only a part, and which could have used a bit of workshopping, the book sold out in the first year of publication because obviously it was a thrilling read.

Kautz then went on to write Customs of Service for Non-Commissioned Officers and Soldiers in 1864 and Customs of Service for Officers for the Army in 1866, because he said “We have numerous handbooks for military service that tell us what to do, but few, if any, that tell us how to do it….” He explained that most military clerks probably only got the job because they happened to have legible handwriting and were otherwise not up to it. But he sure was.

The average modern teenager probably couldn’t read it, but the guy did have some pretty good handwriting. August Kautz, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

All three of his books, which don’t sound like must-read bestsellers to me, remained in print well into the 1880s, because apparently there was a need for them. Kautz found the sweet spot in the book market and wrote just what his audience wanted at the moment they wanted it.

And this is where my book idea comes in. Because paperwork can get long and confusing and tedious, especially, I have long known and recently rediscovered, at the beginning of the school year.

Actually, I would like to point out that we are not yet at the beginning of a new school year. My children don’t go back to school for another month, but the onslaught has already begun and I’m discovering that now that I have a senior, it’s even worse than usual.

Of course I’m not really going to write this. That would require way too much paperwork. But I would probably read it.

This morning I sat down to write and thought perhaps I would first take a few minutes to review any emails that I’d received from the kids’ schools in the past couple of days and knock out a few of the tasks they required.

Three hours later I had filled out numerous online forms, made (and changed) several appointments, signed and scanned registrations, placed an equipment order, renewed a membership, hunted down records, contacted an administrator, emailed a school counselor and a school nurse, RSVP’d to a parent meeting, and rearranged the family schedule to accommodate upcoming non-rearrangeable school events.

All this before I had time to discover August Valentine Kautz and his books, and think, you know, I bet the modern parent could use some help with all of this nonsense. I don’t have a full book proposal fleshed out just yet, but I’m thinking of calling it something like, Customs of Busy Parents: How to Get Through the Paperwork Without Punching Someone in the Face & Other Survival Tips.

I admit the title could still use some workshopping. But I think it would sell.

Bordering on the Ridiculous

On By Sarah AngletonIn Current Events, History, parenthood10 Comments

It was in 1984 when Danish Minister for Greenland Tom Høyem grabbed a bottle of schnapps, chartered a helicopter, and headed for a barren, rocky island to start a war. Smack dab in the middle of the Nares Strait, which connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Arctic and separates Greenland and Canada, the troublesome Hans Island measures a mere 1.3 square km (or about half a square mile). It has no trees, little soil, no known natural resources of any value, and is approximately 123 miles from any inhabited location.

Um, guys? You know it’s basically just a rock, right? Per Starklint, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org
/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

It also contains quite a few bottles of liquor, numerous discarded Danish and Canadian flags, and disregarded signs welcoming visitors to the sovereign land of each country, placed there as a kind of snarky signal to the other that the friendliest border war in history had not yet been settled.

This tiny island was first mapped in the 1920s by Danish explorers, which led the Permanent Court of International Justice (a part of the League of Nations) to declare in 1933 that the island belonged to Denmark. Of course, since the League of Nations was dissolved, its Court of International Justice also proved less permanent than its title implied. It was replaced by the much more creatively named International Court of Justice of the United Nations, which apparently had more important things to not do.

The trouble is that Hans Island falls within the 12 miles of territorial extension from land for both Greenland (Denmark) and Canada, making it tricky to determine which country can claim it.

Weapon of war. Image by 8249023 from Pixabay

In the early 1970s, the nations decided to resolve the conflict themselves and came away from negotiations with a maritime border agreement to the north and south of the island, but didn’t manage to sort out the ownership of Hans Island itself. And so, in 1984 what the press dubbed the “Whiskey War” began.

The whole thing reminds me of when my children were small. I have two sons, two-and-a-half years apart in age. They’re teenagers now who are mostly into their own things and more or less get along most of the time. When they don’t, I’m happy to report they now have the sense to give one another some space. That was not always the case.

I remember one day, at least a decade ago, they had such a hard time leaving one another alone that my husband came home from work to find that I had put painters’ tape on the floor and literally divided the house in two. Each had access to a bathroom and his own bedroom and was not allowed, under any circumstances, to cross even a toe into the other’s territory.

An exhausted, fed-up mom could have solved this problem much faster.

By the time their dad walked through the door, the boys were kind of desperate to resume playing together in a more cooperative manner, and I was ready for a bottle of schnapps.

It took Denmark and Canada until 2005 to decide that some kind of painters’ tape solution might work, and another seventeen years after that to hammer out the details. I’m happy to be able to report that just a few weeks ago, they finally did it. On June 13 of this year, foreign ministers of each country exchanged bottles of whiskey and signed an agreement that will divide Hans Island in two.

The solution comes now, according to Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mélanie Joly, as an example to Russian President Vladimir Putin that border disputes don’t have to be violent. Maybe. Or maybe it says that given a decade or four, most arguments can be resolved with a roll of painters’ tape and plenty of schnapps. But I am glad Canada and Denmark finally got it figured out.

Like a Bat Out of Hell

On By Sarah AngletonIn parenthood, Transportation14 Comments

Clara Ford was at home one day in 1919, I assume doing whatever it is that Clara Ford typically did at home, when she was informed by police that her husband Henry had gotten into trouble with his car. Evidently, he’d been driving “like a bat out of hell,” as one does, I suppose, when one essentially invents the modern auto industry and is probably showing off for one’s grandson who is also in the car.

And worse, he’d been doing so without a driver’s license.

The charming story about Henry Ford and his run-in with the police is shared by the Henry Ford Museum, where you can also see Ford’s first driver’s license, which obviously the above image does not show. Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

That in itself is not as terribly shocking as it first sounds because Michigan only started issuing licenses that year. And after his run-in with the police Henry Ford, at the age of 56, went ahead and got one.

At the age of 56 I think it’s fair to expect that a person is wise enough and cautious enough to be trusted with such power. In fact, that probably happens well before the age of 56. I for one am pretty responsible behind the wheel at a mere 43 years of age. I can’t say I’ve never been pulled over, but it’s been a rare occurrence in my life as a driver. And though I’ve had my license since the tender age of 16, I don’t believe I’ve ever driven like a bat out of hell.

Still, in the last few weeks, 16 has been striking me as incredibly young for the responsibility of driving. Because my oldest son recently hit that milestone.   

A lot of young’uns aren’t pushing so hard these days to get their driver’s license the moment they can. In 2018 there were approximately 227 million licensed drivers on the road in the United States, but only about 25% of sixteen-year-olds were among them. That was down from nearly half in the mid-1980s. I have no idea why so many of the kids aren’t as anxious to get behind the wheel these days, but that was not the case for my son.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that 227 million people were actually on the road at the same time. Can you imagine the traffic jam?
photo credit: Shawn | Shiyang Huang Traffic jam @ Beijing via photopin (license)

He wanted to drive. Actually, I think he’s been wanting to drive since he was four years old, strapped into a car seat in the back, and asking me remarkably intelligent questions about the rules of the road. True story.  

It wasn’t exactly a shock that when he turned fifteen and was old enough to take the written driving test and receive a learner’s permit in our state, he was pretty excited to do it. And he’d been studying since the age of four, so it also wasn’t shocking that he pretty easily passed.

In that year of learning, first in an empty parking lot, then back roads, busier streets with traffic circles and stoplights, lonely highways, and eventually busy interstates where he merged like a pro and stayed nicely centered in his lane, he became a fairly competent driver.

Then he turned sixteen and he wanted to take his driving test so he could get his license. He passed with no trouble. And then on the very day I celebrated the sixteenth anniversary of the first time I ever held my squirming, squishy-faced baby boy, I watched that same kid back out of the driveway and disappear down the street in a car that he was driving all by himself to his martial arts class.

Still what I see.
photo credit: Frank Hemme Hacer camino. via photopin (license)

It was the most anxious moment of my life.

My husband, also anxious, quickly decided he needed to run an errand and followed him. I was grateful, because until that moment, I was pretty sure I might also have an errand to run, and I was relieved when I received a text a little bit later letting me know the car was safely parked at the school.

My son really is a good driver and I become more comfortable each time he returns home safely. I can’t guarantee that he doesn’t drive like a bat out of hell, but I know he never did in his year of permit driving and so far, the police haven’t indicated that that has changed.

I don’t know if these bats are flying out of Hell, but they do seem to be in a reckless kind of hurry. photo credit: USFWS Headquarters Mexican free-tailed bats exiting Bracken Bat Cave via photopin (license)

At least he had to pass a test. Henry Ford didn’t. Michigan only began driver testing in 1931. That is better than the Great State of Missouri, which was actually one of the first to issue licenses for drivers, in 1903. It was another 49 years before the state began testing.

But despite what I sometimes suggest when I am not-so-silently judging the other drivers on the road from the privacy of my own car, they seem to do a pretty good job of it now.

So maybe, depending on the kid, 16 isn’t such a bad age to issue a driver’s license? I don’t know. But I suppose I’d probably worry about him at any age. Maybe even if he were 56.

Four Wheels and a Hint of Danger

On By Sarah AngletonIn parenthood, Transportation12 Comments

In the wee hours of the morning on July 4, 1896, Henry Ford smashed the brick side of his shed with an axe. That might sound a little extreme, but after months of work the inventor and future business superstar was finally ready to test drive a new creation he called the Quadricycle. The trouble was it didn’t fit through the door.

Ford_quadricycle_crop
If I saw this coming down the road I’d probably get out of the way. Ford’s Quadricycle. Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

With the exception of a brief breakdown due to a faulty spring, the rest of the test drive was more or less a success. Ford’s friend and assistant James Bishop rode ahead on his bicycle to warn carriages and pedestrians to get out of the way. Ford fired up his four-horse-powered gasoline engine and tootled along behind in a 500-pound frame with four bicycle tires, no breaks, little steering ability, and a “horn” made from a doorbell.

Thankfully, he improved on the design a little through the years.

Can’t you just picture that first test run? I can imagine the look on Henry Ford’s face as he raced through the streets of Detroit at a whopping twenty miles per hour. It must have been a mix of elation at the beginning of a dream coming true and the terror of barely controlling something powerful enough to kill you and everyone in your way. It’s probably the same expression I wore many years ago the first time I got behind the wheel of a car and it actually started moving.

permit driver
Our version of a crier on a bicycle. Trouble is you don’t see it until he’s already driven past.

My oldest son recently got to have that experience. He turned fifteen at the end of last year and in the state of Missouri that means he became eligible to test for his driving learner’s permit. Because his birthday falls so late in the year, we decided it would be wise to get the permit as soon as possible so he had a better chance of gaining plenty of experience on icy winter roads before the state considers granting him a real license at age sixteen.

But because we didn’t have anyone on a bicycle to warn everyone to get out of the way, we decided to start in a large, empty parking lot on a dry, sunny day.

I’m not sure what expression I wore when I handed him the keys that first time and took my place in the passenger seat. I’d like to think I conveyed calm reassurance. We took a little time for him to get familiar with dashboard controls, mirrors, break, and accelerator. Then he turned the key for that first time, put the car in gear, and took his foot off the brake.

_MG_2365
How I see my teenager when he sits behind the wheel. photo credit: Alex E. Proimos Learning to Drive via photopin (license)

As Henry Ford probably was more than a century ago and as surely every new driver has been since, my son was nervous and a little unsure, but also really excited to discover the sensation of wielding so much power.

That afternoon he drove us around and around the parking lot, practicing turning, breaking, and parking. Then I made him work on backing up, another thing Henry Ford’s original Quadricycle couldn’t do.

When we were both a little more comfortable, we took the lesson to a few quiet back roads. He even drove us home and parked in the garage without incident and with very little cringing or pretend break stomping from me.

My son is still a little uncertain behind the wheel. He’s got more to learn and will need a lot more practice to gain the confidence required to be a really good driver, but he’s attentive and teachable and determined. I’ve no doubt he’ll get there. I just hope he never feels the need to take an axe to the side of the garage.

SmokeFrontCover
Coming soon!

And . . .These days, when I’m not teaching my son how to drive, I’m preparing to launch a new book, coming February 4th. Follow this link to get a peek!