Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: TRAVEL (07/08/21)
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TITLE: Unravel the Gravol | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jack Taylor
07/13/21 -
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There’s really one main reason. My mother got car sick and she made sure the three of us kids took Gravol, along with her, to prevent any troubles along the way. I’m not sure she ever read the directions on the proper dose for little ones. She just knew what motion sickness did for little tummies.
Of course, in those days there were no car seats, belts to hold you down, or limits on movement. My dad took out the back seats, mom laid out blankets along the floor of the van, and we snoozed the miles away with our suitcases stuffed in along the edges. I remember rest stops, motel rooms, attractions of one kind or another but I’m convinced it’s because when the trip was done, and the rolls of dad’s films arrived back in the mail, he would sit us down to see what we saw. Dad often took pictures while driving by something so he could keep to his schedule. If things weren’t blurry the first time I might have seen them, they were often blurry the second time.
I think I remember Mickey Mouse at Disney Land. My mother didn’t want us getting sick on the rides so the Gravol solved that problem. We were probably the only kids in the place who gave Donald Duck and Goofy a blank look as we hung limply against our parent’s legs. My father brags to his friends about what great travellers his kids were. Dad was a teacher so summers were free to travel so that he could get stories to tell his students.
Before the third trip, I asked, “Dad why do we have to drive so far every summer when we have lots of things to see close by?”
He didn’t miss a beat. He said, “When Jesus was here, he travelled through his own country and that’s the least we can do.” I didn’t realize then that Jesus had a much smaller country to explore.
Thirty years later, my sister calls our upbringing malpractice, abuse and dysfunctional. I still nod politely when she is going off in a gathering about why she has to have Gravol when she travels. “My mother turned me into an addict,” she says. She’s taken her family on cross-country road trips twice so they could see all the things she missed as a kid.
Me, when people show me their holiday photos on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat or on their phones, I can pretty well say, “Yup! Been there, done that!” My kids wonder why we don’t do cross-country trips like their cousins.
Last week my ten-year-old asked, “how come we don’t go on long drives like other people?”
“Because you haven’t got your driver’s license yet,” I told him. “When you get old enough to fly somewhere and spend your own money then you’ll be making a memory you’ll remember. If you want to go somewhere, check it out on your IPad and be glad you’re not strapped into the back of a hot car for hour after hour.”
My thirteen-year-old is the bright one. “Dad takes us camping every year for two weeks so we are glad to be home,” she informs her brother. “We don’t even have to go an hour from here to get eaten by mosquitoes and black flies. Your cousins have to sit for hours looking at pictures and we only have to pose for one.”
Some people are born with wings and have to spread them. I had my wings clipped young and I’m happy to be rooted right where I am. I think a lot about my dad’s perspective on Jesus. He made the whole world but focused on the people and places right close to where he was born and brought up.
While my dad drew his boundaries large and soaked us in his world, I’m happy to make memories wherever I am. That’s what I see is the purpose of travel – making memories with the people and places you care about. I’ve taken my family off the super-highway and settled into the slow lane and the rest stops. Every year, we travel just far enough to stop and get to know each other again.
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I have wondered what Jesus must have surely thought and felt being confined to such a small area when he knew how vast the world is!