How Many Times Can You Listen to the Same Song?

When I was younger, people would die who had been around at or near the Civil War. There were, most likely, people during the Civil War who had been around at the time of the Revolutionary War. Depending on who knew whom, that could put George Washington 3 degrees from Kevin Bacon. Okay, it was an amazing observation before that last line. We move on.

Actually, we don’t move on. We stay. I heard a song from the late 50s or early 60s in the grocery store the other day. It dawned on me that, while this music predates me and seems tame and, possibly, traditional to me, it may remind people of Steph's mother's age of their youth and bring back fond memories, and people in Steph’s grandfather’s generation probably called it something like “that crazy noise the kids listen to these days.” We all live in different worlds, but they intersect. That's what I believe. And we move on.

So, we drove down to Springfield, Illinois. That’s 467.27 miles. Actually, it’s only 320 miles as the crow flies, but we took a car. (What was Eisenhower thinking when he designed those interstate highways?)

When you’re married and are looking at a 7 hour drive ahead of you, you’re thinking “Man! How are we going to survive a 7 hour drive?” When you’re married and have an 18-month-old and are looking at a 7 hour drive ahead of you, you’re thinking “Man! How are we going to survive a 9 hour drive with an 18-month-old screaming in the back?” Having a child really does change your outlook on life, I guess. And here’s more. One of the tricks is to stop and let the Toddler of Action (TM) run himself tired. Then throw him in the car, take off, and hope he sleeps. (Of course, WE’RE the ones who end up most tired after these stops. Just God’s way of saying “Don’t have kids!”)

Now, I’ve been a vegetarian on a trial basis for about 9 years now. Even before that, I avoided McDonalds like the plague. BUT, I knew that McDonalds restaurants had playgrounds. Little did I know, only SOME had playgrounds. We stopped at one just this side of Madison, Wisconsin (in Windsor) hoping to find a playground. There was no playground to be found. So we drove a bit down the road and stopped at another one. This one had no playground either. But the Hardees did have a playground. So we stopped and ate, sort of. They had nothing vegetarian. We thought they’d at least have a salad, but no. Not gonna happen. So after we sort of ate, I took the Toddler of Action to the playground area. He wasn’t really interested in playing. ARRRGGHHH. So I shoved him down the slide a couple times and threw him in the car and tried to get out of the Madison area. (If you’ve ever tried to maneuver around Madison, you’re probably still trying so I’ll keep this short to save your laptop battery.)

In other places, we noticed other strange things. Black boxes over the highway. I presumed these marquee things were to inform us of potential hazards ahead. Nope. They alternated between “Wear your seat belt; click it or ticket” and “start seeing motorcycles.” Of course, in trying to read that stupid sign, I ran over two motorcycles. BUT, I saw the motorcycles in my rear view mirror, so I’m starting to see them. Anyway, if the highway ever crashes, they can check the black box for the pre-crash data and know that, prior to the crash, millions of drivers were distracted to be told the obvious.

Another strange thing I saw had to do with a stop sign. You know, those things they made big, octagon, and red so you can’t miss them. Well, I saw some with a red flag sticking out of one of the sides. I guess so you can miss them. There’s one in Rochester that has flashing lights bordering it. Pretty soon they’ll have little bumper stickers for motorcycles reading “Start seeing stop signs.” I guess the world gets so hectic and so visually busy that you stop noticing the obvious, so you need something more obvious to point out the obvious. Of course, that would continue the snowball effect, so you’d need something to point out the thing pointing out the obvious.

So, after several stops for wearing the youngster out, we made it to the hotel. And locked the keys in the car. That’s a hoot. Years ago, I would have freaked out about that. I just laughed to myself. First, I’m older, wiser, and know not to let life’s easily solve-ables get me down. Second, in this situation, you’re dancing up and down for joy that it didn’t happen at one of those rest stops along the way. It’s difficult to explain your location to a tow truck operator when you don’t know where you are, even if you can figure which tow truck operator to call.

One of the things we did on this trip was go to the Springfield Zoo. It’s not actually called the Springfield Zoo, though, so don’t try to find it under that name. I don’t remember the name of it but it has critters and a gift shop so it must be a zoo. If you pay a bit more, you get this key card which you plug into these box things by each cage. Then the little speaker tells you more information than is given in those little paragraph things posted by the cage. We didn’t pay more. Good thing, too. The Toddler of Action is a dancer; not a learner. When you go up to those little boxes and, without the key, hit the button, it plays a little song telling you how great it is to rent a key to learn more about the animals. The Toddler of Action loved it. While we’re watching the cougar sleep, the Toddler’s dancing up a storm to a commercial.

He did like some of the animals, though. The otters. The monkeys. The horse. The plastic turtle kids can climb in the little in-zoo playground. What is that about? They have a playground IN the zoo! Of course, that was the Toddler’s favorite spot in the zoo. (Yes, he liked it more than he liked to music boxes.) In the end, we paid good money to, at least partially, play in a third rate playground when we could have gone to a better city park playground for free.

So after the Toddler was finished dancing and playing in the ground and we were done pretending we cared that he was looking at the animals in the zoo, we went back to the hotel.

And saw some news. Here’s some of what happened while we were gone.
1) Those cowards in St. Paul gave a billionaire hundreds of millions of dollars in the form of a baseball stadium. No word yet on increased funding for K-12, higher ed, health care, or renewable fuels. I won’t hold my breath.
2) Barbaro was injured. That brings up one of the big bothers of horse racing. No one seems to care unless it’s some kind of arbitrary history in the making. For most people, the concern is totally phony. For 11 months of the year, few care about horse racing. Then we have the Kentucky Derby. After the Derby, the world is abuzz with talk of the “next triple crown winner.” Until the next race. The Derby winner loses and horse racing is ignored until the next year. Don’t believe me? Answer these three questions:
1) Who won the race in which Barbaro was injured?
2) What was the name of the race?
3) What is the name of third race of the triple crown?

If you can answer all three of those without looking it up, I owe you an apology.

I assume that some non-sports-related news happened, but I only read the sports section so I couldn’t tell you what it was.

During the Springfield stay, we took the Toddler of Action into the pool. Golly, that water is cold. But he enjoyed bouncing up and down in it and watching dear ol’ dad nearly drown, so all were happy with the pool. If only any of us could swim.

Well, every vacation needs a happy ending.

So, we drove home, cursing at the McDonalds signs, looking for rest stops with playgrounds, and double-checking the location of my keys when I locked the car doors. Oh, yeah, and starting to see motorcycles.

Oh yeah, and somewhere in there we went to a birthday party.

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© 2006, Mark Wentz