by Phyllis McCrossin
Last week we brought the truck in for a tune-up before hitting the road (a week from today). Our mechanic is the son of a good friend from 4-H and does a remarkable job. He didn’t find anything major with the truck, but did say he saw a mouse while he was working on it.
I don’t know where the critter is now, but I do know mice can do a lot of damage. Cindy needs a cat friend.
I grew up in Hamilton. That bastion of conservative little towns that was even more so in the 1960s and 1970s.
When I was a freshman in college my father came home with a 1972 Fiat Spider Sport. It was a fun little orange two-seater that my sister and I loved to drive around town. Any car in our driveway was fair game for my sister and me. If it was in the driveway we could take it anywhere. That was Dad’s rule. We could go and visit any place – except “drive the circuit on Eighth Street in Holland.”
Though my older sisters may have ventured out on a Sunday afternoon, my younger sister and I never did. It never appealed to either of us. But keys were always in the ignition (it was a different time) and if we needed a car, whatever was in the driveway was available to us.
Dad always drove something that stood out — a 1956 Willys Jeep, a pickup with a camper, 1964 Plymouth Fury convertible, a bright orange Fiat Spider convertible – anything unusual or something that stood out just a little was something my Dad drove with relish.
At one point he even had a home-made dune buggy that looked something like the car the Munster family drove on the TV show, “The Munsters.” It was fun, but when you think about it there was a method to Dad’s madness. He had four daughters. Let them drive a car that stands out and it’s rather difficult for them to get into trouble unnoticed.
There really was little my sisters could get away with – there was always a neighbor or employee that enjoyed tattling on Don Stehower’s daughters.
I recall a time my younger sister and I got into a fight on the Allegan County Fairgrounds. Sisters argue. It happens. By the time we started for home it was forgotten. But someone told on us and before we even got home Dad heard about it. He was waiting for us at the end of the driveway of Dog Life where he was plant manager. It wasn’t the fact that we had a fight. It was the fact that we had a fight in public because after all, “What will the neighbors think?”
So this is a long way around to get back to mice in vehicles. One early summer day my sister and I were driving the Fiat through Hamilton. We had just gotten the car out of storage and were enjoying the summer sun and driving around in our bathing suits. (It was forbidden attire unless one was at the beach). We were on the bridge on M-40 where it crosses the Rabbit River when a mouse skittered across the dashboard. My sister was driving and slammed on the brakes. We both jumped out and stood on the bridge jumping up and down yelling, “Get it out! Get it out!”
We never did find it. And surprisingly Dad never found out. I don’t know how that one escaped the notice of the town gossips. We gingerly got back into the car. My sister was still driving and I was sitting with my feet on the seat in case he ran across the floorboards.
Dad came home from work that night and asked Mom why the car doors were open with the car in the driveway. “I think the girls saw a mouse,” was all Mom said. I think she knew.
