Road Trip

06.17.2024 Written for Writing Your Memoir, Memory by Memory Osher Lifelong Learning Class, through UTEP

I wish my mom and dad were here to tell this road trip story.  Well, not just to tell this story but to give me one more hug, or to go for one more walk, or to enjoy a day with all their great grandchildren.  But for this moment I wish my parents were here to retell the story of the road trip where Mom drove off and left Dad at the gas station.  We have had so many laughs over that crazy day.  And they would tell it so much better than I in my attempt here.

My parents were on their way to visit me in El Paso.  I think they were somewhere in the middle of nowhere New Mexico when they pulled their Buick station wagon with wood panels up to a pump at a mom-and-pop gas station.  I want to say they were in Carrizozo when they stopped to fill the tank, get some coffee for Mom, and change drivers.  But my mom always loved saying Carrizozo so whether that was where they really were is up for debate.

Daddy climbed out of the driver’s seat to pump the gas while Mom went inside for a pitstop and to purchase a cup coffee to sip during her upcoming stint behind the wheel.  When the gas tank was full, Daddy went into the little convenience store to use the restroom, too as Mom adjusted the driver’s seat, the mirrors, the AC vents back in the car.

As they always did on long trips with just the two of them, the driver would do just that – drive and the passenger would sit or lay down in the back seat for a break.  Although the 3 of us kids had long left home, my parents still preferred driving a station wagon for that reason.  And to afford them the luxury of packing everything but the kitchen sink into that third-seat area to take along on their travels.

When my dad returned from the bathroom, he opened the passenger side door to the second row of seats and attempted to climb in but immediately remembered that side of the car was also being used for the storage of all the things that didn’t fit in the ‘way back’.  So, he shut the door and started back behind the car to get in on the driver’s side of the second row of seats. 

My mother heard the door shut and took that as her cue to step on the gas and take off toward El Paso leaving my father aghast in her rearview mirror.  If she had only bothered to glance in the mirror to see him.  But she didn’t.

Mom traveled in silence for a few moments before attempting to talk to my dad.  No answer.  Maybe he took his hearing aids out?  She turned down the talk radio program and raised her voice.  No response from the second row of seats. 

Mom began to worry a bit.  Could Daddy have really fallen asleep that fast?  Or maybe he was sick?  She raised her voice a little louder.  “DeWayne, answer me!!”  Nothing.  Then “Damn it, DeWayne, answer me right now!!”  Crickets.

About right here in the story, Mom always liked to add that my dad was very small in stature and weight, and she could imagine him curled up on the seat just out of reach.  Mom was really worried.  But not enough worried, yet, to pull over.  Instead, she took her right hand off the steering wheel and began trying to feel around behind her on the second seat.  Nope, not there.  Then, more frantically, Mom began patting the floorboard thinking Dad had fallen asleep that fast – or had a heart attack?? – and fallen into the footwell.  But she came up empty-handed.  He just wasn’t anywhere to be found or heard. 

I think at this point, Mom decided she better pull over.  She glanced in the rearview mirror as she eased onto the right shoulder of the highway.  Coming up behind her on the road was a state trooper with flashing lights.  Good grief, what now?

Mom climbed out of the car – even though she was probably warned by the trooper not to do so.  She opened the rear door and discovered the back seat was empty.  She was flabbergasted.  Where had her husband gone?

It was right about now that the trooper came up beside my 80-year-old mother and asked if she was Nira Roberts, the wife of DeWayne Roberts.  I’m pretty certain that if her heart wasn’t already racing it began doing so then.  Over the audible thumping of her heart, she answered yes, she was.  The trooper explained that he had been called by my dad at the gas station in Carrizozo asking for help in tracking down Mom and getting her to return to said gas station for Dad.  She had driven close to 20 miles before stopping to check the back seat.  Now she had to drive that 20 miles back to fetch my father.  Further delaying their arrival in El Paso. 

But she did it.  And, we were glad she did.  So was Dad.

Oh, the laughs this adventure has brought our family with each retelling of the story.  And it became even richer a few years later when Dad returned the favor in a similar instance and left Mom at a gas station somewhere. 

As my mother always liked to say, ‘it’s a great life if you don’t weaken.’  She would always add that she was beginning to weaken.  Me, too, Mom.