Walnuts on My Windshield

Friday, April 22, 2005

When I was a child, our family traveled by car a lot. While we rolled on, my brother and I fought in the back seat. As I recall, I sat on the left and my brother on the right. The car's upholstery stitching featured a line down the exact middle of the bench seat in the back, but my brother had a habit of always crossing the line. Maybe I crossed the line, too, but I don't remember that.

Dad almost always drove. The only exception was on very long trips; he would sometimes let my mom drive for a little while so he could rest. Mom's customary position was in the front passenger seat, where Dad referred to her as the "navigatrix and commentator." I think his own mom had had that title in the previous generation, and there is a funny story told on Grandma concerning Hayes, Kansas. Grandpa was driving and asked Grandma to look at the map and see where the next town was, so they could stop for the night. Grandma looked and said that Hayes, Kansas was pretty close. When Grandpa asked how far it was to Hayes, Grandma held her thumb and forefinger about an inch apart and said, "oh, about that far." I think they drove far into the night to get to Hayes, Kansas.

Mom is a good navigatrix and commentator, and she passed that skill on to me. Well, I am a good commentator. I can actually commentate on almost anything or even, when necessary, nothing at all. I can usually navigate tolerably well, but since Scott is not prone to ask directions of anyone (including me) my commentating skills are much more highly developed than my navigating ones.

Because I have always assumed that the N & C mix is passed genetically from one female to another, I was appalled recently to learn that we have broken the chain. Last Saturday, Katie's paper on The Navajo Code Talkers was entered in the History Day in Missouri competition, and she was to be interviewed at the University of Missouri in Columbia at 9:15 AM. To keep things from being boring, Scott's flight to China left that same morning at 6:49 AM. I always drive him to the airport; ostensibly because we don't want to leave a car at the airport for weeks, but really because we all like to go pick him up and drive home together.

The Springfield airport is about an hour from our house. Columbia is about four hours from home. I began to think this through. To get Katie to Columbia at 9:15, I would have to leave Springfield around 5:15. To drop Scott at the airport at 5:15, I would have to leave home at 4:15. To leave home at 4:15 (and look human), I would have to get up at 3:30. It was starting to sound insane. Although Katie's interview was at 9:15, the judging wouldn't end till 3:00, which meant the awards ceremony would be sometime after that. I would then have to drive four hours home. Having gotten out of bed at 3:30 AM, I would not sure I could do that!

Scott and John Christopher came to the rescue. Scott insisted Katie and I drive to Columbia on Friday night. He would deal with the airport himself. I relented. Then John, who lives in Springfield, volunteered to drive to Walnut Shade, pick Scott up at 5:00 AM and drive him to the airport (what a super nice guy!!!), which is how I found myself on the road with Katie on a Friday afternoon, headed toward Columbia.

It's really not all THAT hard to get to Columbia. I had looked up the route on one of those on-line sites, and I had read over the printed instructions. You know the type: Turn right onto on ramp for .1 mile. Merge left. Follow Hwy. Q for 376 feet. Etc. The printout also included a map of central Missouri, featuring a fat purple squiggle which was supposedly the route from our home to Katie's interview. How hard could it be?

We were late leaving home, what with attempting to pick up a van from the shop. We happen to have three vehicles right now; two green Ford vans (creatively designated "the old green van" and "the new green van") and a gray Honda. I suppose we have three vehicles so that we can each drive one while one is in the shop. I wanted to drive the old green van to Columbia, because it is the most comfortable. I planned to leave home at 2:30 PM, so as to arrive in full daylight. My night vision is not the best. Scott talked to the mechanic, who said the van would be ready to be picked up at 1:30 PM. I called a friend and got a ride out there (13 miles one way), and as we pulled into the shop parking area, Scott called my cell phone to say that the van wouldn't be ready for another hour. Grrrrrr. Lee took me back home, old-green-van-less.

I still hadn't packed, because I had been trying to get a pile of ministry paperwork tended to before I left. I arrived home with 15 minutes to pack and hit the road in the new green van, which explains why I almost forgot to find a Missouri highway map. I keep one in the old green van, but it was, of course, at the shop. I asked Scott to be sure to take his passport and tickets, told him I loved him, and we were off.

Katie and I are two of a kind. We both like to lose ourselves when traveling by car. I was listening to a book on tape, and she was reading a book. We are two of the few people in the world who can share a car alone for three hours, say not one word, and be perfectly happy. Every now and then, I interrupted her reverie to ask what my next turn was. She read me the stuff off the printout, and all was well. We traveled north to Springfield, east to Lebanon, and north toward Columbia; she reading a book about archaeology, and Yours Truly engrossed in Sherlock Holmes.

I knew that we had to go through Jefferson City to get to Columbia. We had been to Jeff City last year, when Katie competed in the Missouri Archaeology Challenge. Jefferson City is a poorly designed town, especially when you consider that it was built to be the state capital. Its highway interchanges aren't too great, either, but I knew what I was looking for: Highway 54 to Highway 63. We wove down the hill toward the capital on 54, exited right, merged onto 54/63 and zipped across the muddy Missouri. Great. Now I wouldn't have to think for another 25 miles and I could get back to A Study in Scarlet. I made a mental note of when on the odometer I would need to ask Katie to close her book and navigate me, set the cruise back to 65 and turned on the tape.

I knew it was a little under thirty miles from Jeff City to Columbia, but I didn't know the exact mileage. I came to consciousness when I saw a sign for Interstate 70. I knew the even number meant it went east-west, and I recalled that 70 crossed the state from St. Louis to Kansas City. Sherlock was describing two different but related murders, so I drove on. After a while, I noticed that the countryside was looking flatter and even more farmish than it had been. Also, with the sun sinking to my left, it gradually dawned on me that I was still heading north. And it had been more than 25 miles. In fact, it had been about 35, once I re-did the math. So I asked Katie if she had any idea where we were. No, she didn't; did I? Well, generally speaking, yes, but specifically? Umm. . . no.

I asked her to get out the highway map, which she did, but it took her a while to get it oriented and figure out what part of the state was pertinent. Of course, there were no exits, along that stretch, so I just kept driving. I did however silence Mr. Holmes. Katie was asking what town I remembered seeing recently. Well, I didn't know any towns. All I remembered was Interstate 70 a few miles back. Did I happen to know if we had passed Kingdom City? Yes! I actually remembered that one. Well, Mom, we are going the wrong way. Wrong way? What do you mean, wrong way? We can't be going the wrong way! We're right here where we're supposed to be on Highway 63. At least I think we are. . .

There was a water tower on the horizon, so I told Katie we'd go at least that far so I could figure out what town we were near. When we approached it and read the town name, Katie located it on the highway map and broke the news to me. "Mom, you may think we are on Highway 63, but we are actually on Highway 54." Now, how could that be? I know good and well we merged onto 63 just before we crossed the Missouri River at Jefferson City. I asked if Highway 54 would take us to Columbia. "No. If you had gone west on Interstate 70 back at Kingdom City, THAT would have taken us to Columbia - the long way - but Highway 54 will take us Mexico. After that, if we stay on 54, it will eventually take us into Illinois!" This was a problem, so I did what genetic Roberts are unable to do. I turned around and went back the way we had come.

Katie is studying Geometry right now, so while we backtracked, she explained to me from the map that there is a triangulation between Jefferson City, Kingdom City, and Columbia. The most direct route from Jefferson City to Columbia would have been along Highway 64. (That's exactly what I thought we were doing, thank you, dear Navigatrix!). However, according to the Triangle Inequality Theorem ("the sum of the lengths of two sides of a triangle has to exceed the length of the third side"), the distance from Jeff City to Columbia via Kingdom City has to be longer than the distance from Jeff City to Columbia. Thank you, Euclid. I am always pleased when our children apply what they are learning to practical situations, but at that exact moment, all I really wanted to know was "where the heck did Highway 64 go?!?"

Back at Kingdom City, we shot west on Interstate 70 and soon arrived in Columbia. We were an hour late, but that didn't really matter. After dinner at Golden Corral, swimming in the lukewarm indoor pool, and watching the CBN news, we went to bed.

The next morning, I pulled out my detailed directions on how to get from the hotel to the MU campus and prayed that we could find the place. We did, thanks to my excellent navigatrix, who was forbidden to read in the car, and we commenced seeking a parking place. The University of Missouri is not a campus; it is a CITY! The place is huge and makes SMSU look like squat. In addition the Arts and Sciences building which we sought was within the walking part of the campus. We couldn't see it from any of the numerous streets we tooled along. Hopefully, it did actually exist.

By now it was 9:00 AM, and I was getting nervous. We still had to park - or abandon the van somewhere - hike to an unknown destination, and get Katie to room 203 in less than 15 minutes. Thankfully, there were many young people in powder blue T-shirts standing around on corners, looking helpful. I asked a series of them how to find the Arts and Sciences building and where to park to access it, and I got replies ranging from, "over there," "back behind you," and "on the other side of the law school" to "you may be able to park a few blocks down that street at a meter," "I don't know," and "try the Turner Avenue Parking Structure." Wonderful. I stopped at a corner - a corner I had been to four times from three different directions - and told Katie to jump out and run. She did.

I sat at the stop sign at a T in the road and prayed. I prayed that she would be able to figure out where on earth she was supposed to be and how to get there in 10 minutes, that she'd have a great interview, that I'd find somewhere to ditch the van, and that I'd see her again someday. I then lowered my window for the seventh time to ask advice from a blue-shirted lady. I had actually seen the Tuner Avenue Parking Structure in the recent past, but I could not remember how to get to its entrance. If I turned left here, would I be headed in the proper direction. She told me I could not turn left. Neither could I turn right. Why not? "Because we have a benefit 5K starting and the runners are coming right now. You can't move till they all pass by." (Sigh)

It takes a long time for a few hundred folks of varying abilities to walk/run past a given point, but thankfully this was near the start of the race. By the end of the race, there was almost an hour between the first and last competitors. Down the sidewalk, I could see Katie running away from me against a crowd of numbered shirts running toward me. After several minutes, it was finally decided that since the runners were passing beside me instead of in front of me, I could indeed turn left. Hallelujah! I got into the Turner Avenue Parking Structure, undoubtedly so named because once inside you are completely Turned Around. No matter, because there were no spaces. I mean no spaces. I circled higher and higher and finally found the only empty space, situated at a corner that was too sharp to get the van into. A Honda Civic turns on a dime. A Ford Windstar does not.

Finally parked, I began to seek an exit. I had no idea how to get down out of the Turner Avenue Parking Structure, but gravity compelled me downward. I shortly met a 50-something couple walking two dogs. Yes, they were walking their dogs in the Turner Avenue Parking Structure! Even surface, guaranteed shade, gentle slope; what's more to want? I asked them if they could please point me toward Arts and Sciences, and they graciously gave directions that I was actually able to repeat and follow. Breathing heavily and sweating profusely (it was a warm day), I hoofed it down the stairs, across the street, across a courtyard, through the Law building, around another building, through the commons, into Arts and Sciences, and up the stairs. I found Katie in the hall outside 203, calm, cool, and collected as usual. She was just about to go in for her interview.

The interview went well, and we found out that the awards ceremony would be held at 4:30. We therefore had quite a few hours to kill. We wandered the MU campus for a while, seeking a couple of museums, which were both closed. We spent quite a bit of time and effort trying to prove that, although the Missouri Historical Society is clearly located in Ellis Library, none of the doors to Ellis Library access the Historical Society and none of the Library employees know that the Historical Society exists. Through dogged determination, we did eventually find the Missouri Historical Society, and in its art gallery we enjoyed a number of paintings by George Caleb Bingham (including his original watercolors for Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi), some excellent political cartoons from the WWII era, and a series of truly incredible woodcuts, by an artist whose name I vowed never to forget, but which I cannot remember. Then, as planned, we departed for Jefferson City and some fun at the state capitol building.

We had visited the Capitol last year, but the boys were with us. Katie and I love history, but Josiah and Andrew aren't quite as intrigued. Trying to deal with a bored 10-year-old and a rowdy 4-year-old had made it necessary to rush through the capitol. This time, we both wanted to tour it leisurely, and we had several hours to do so. Of course, first we had to find our way to Jefferson City, preferably without a side trip to Kingdom City. My navigatrix and commentator was improving with age, so we were able to get onto Highway 64, and it really did go straight to Jeff City.

By now we were ready for lunch, and that's what caused the problem. Jefferson City is built on the side of a hill. The Capitol and Governor's Mansion are located on a bluff right by the river. The rest of the town sprawls up the hill, then levels off and sprawls up another hill. There are a couple of widely-spaced, parallel main drags up the hill. At the bottom (low-rent district near the Capitol) is the four-lane highway that crosses the river and then runs along the river on the Jeff City side. It should be Highway 53 and/or Highway 64, but it is Highway 50. However, it doesn't matter what you call it, because it will never take you where you want to go.

We were looking for decent fast food, and I remembered from last year that one of those vertical main drags was hamburger row. I couldn't recall the name of it, but considering my excellent sense of direction (ha!), how hard could it be? Actually pretty hard. We ventured upwards for a long time, then over, across, and through a neighborhood full of really big, really old homes. We wove around, headed out of town twice in two different directions, went back down, leveled off and ended up at a stop sign that we had approached fifteen minutes before from the opposite direction. Why on earth ANYONE would lay out a city in this manner, and a capital city to boot, was completely beyond me. At this point, Katie was no longer useful as a navigatrix, because she was laughing too hard. She just kept pointing at streets and signs and buildings that we had seen at least twice before and laughing. I couldn't figure out why she was laughing at me. Wasn't she the navigatrix? All this laughing was severely impairing her ability to commentate, as well.

I sought a gas station to obtain directions to food. Within, I located a rude woman who told me to go left on 50 to the fifth light, turn left on Missouri Boulevard and go up the hill, where I would see a lot of restaurants. She looked at me like I had no brain, but I thanked her anyway. We turned left on 50 (which really should be 64, or at least 53), counted our stoplights, and found ourselves back down in front of the Capitol for the fourth time in two days. We turned left on Missouri Boulevard, and sure enough, as we climbed the hill, there was Fazoli's. Now, what I want to know is, how did they move not only Fazoli's, but a whole string of restaurants, two gas stations, and a Wal-Mart, all in thirty minutes?

We finally ate. We went to the Capitol. We had a capital time. We got to see all kinds of neat things, and maybe sometime I will write about the magic door and the Thomas Hart Benton murals. After a few hours of history lovers' ecstasy, we eventually found our way back to Columbia (via Highway 64, with which we were by this time developing a close personal relationship) and entered our old friend, the Turner Avenue Parking Structure. He was largely vacant now, the runners having departed and taken their vehicles with them. Parked in a different section of the Turner Avenue Parking Structure, I, of course, had no idea where I was or where to go. Thankfully, Katie, my recovered navigatrix, led us straight to Jesse Auditorium where we waited in vain for her name to be announced as one of the two delegates or one alternate to the National History Day competition in Maryland. We were both really surprised and sad.

I went to college, and even though as the mom I am not impartial, I had thought her paper was excellent and would be ranked first or second among the six finalists. We got the news today that it ranked sixth. Of course, it was a competition among 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th graders, and she is technically in 9th grade. We had been told that the competition would be rigorous and intense, but I guess neither of us really understood just how rigorous and how intense. She had done a superb job of describing a historical event, but she could have gone farther in drawing conclusions and tying her topic to the annual theme. Her paper was not overtly politically correct, but some of the judges' comments led us to believe they would have liked to see some P.C. analysis.

It was a learning experience, but a tough one. We both cried silently for most of the way back to Jeff City, but once we were sure we were headed the right way on Highway 54, we talked for a couple hours about the whole thing. Katie even asked me to help her brainstorm possible topics for next year. Despite the disappointment, she said it had been worth doing. It's good to be able to live your life with no regrets, even when you are 14. It is one of my goals at 44.

From My Book Pile:

I Sleep at Red Lights by Bruce Stockler, rank 6. The author is a comedy writer who ended up being Mr. Mom to his toddler son and newborn triplets, while his wife worked as a high-powered attorney in New York City. This book chronicles some of the funny things that happened in their family. It is a fun story, but these folks had some of the worst parenting skills imaginable!

A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, rank 10. It's amazing that this book ranked so high, because I almost never read fiction and rarely enjoy it if I do. This is the first of the Sherlock Holmes murder mysteries, and it was very enjoyable. I love a book that is tightly-constructed and well-written. Holmes is clearly a "beaver," a personality close to my heart. I listened to this on the Columbia jaunt, which fact may (when added to the poor work of the Jefferson City city planners) contribute to my navigational challenges as mentioned above.

Quote of the Week:

"All government originates in families, and if neglected there, it will hardly exist in society...The foundation of all free government and of all social order must be laid in families and in the discipline of youth....The education of youth, [is] an employment of more consequence than making laws and preaching the gospel, because it lays the foundation on which both the law and gospel rest for success." ~ Noah Webster

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