Drive (The Cars)

By Pat Fule Random Thoughts

I’m not sure if you like (or know) who The Cars are, but they’re one of my favorite bands of the 1980s. In fact, at the latest votes for their inclusion to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I voted about 25 times. If ever you feel votes don’t matter in elections, well, they got in. I’m sure they’d want to contact me if they knew of my votes, but we did recently lose their main guy in Ric Ocasek, so that’s not gonna happen.
The song Drive, by The Cars, got me thinking of all the kilometres I’ve put on driving for coaching and some of the strange things that happened on these trips.
When I coached the Strathmore High School varsity boys’ basketball team, we would go to Invermere, B.C. for tournaments. One reason for ending this was a trip home late on a Saturday in a howling blizzard. We were heading back in near zero visibility and I even had a player riding shotgun who helped add a second pair of eyes to see ahead and to the side. He even rolled down the window at times to try and see better. Were the other lads worried? Oh no. They yelled, and sang, and wrestled in the rental van. After several kilometres of this and stressing to see anything, I finally lost it on them. You see, one of the big forwards had had enough of a certain loud point guard who’d been teasing him. As I looked quickly in my inner mirror, the forward had this yappy guard pressed against the ceiling of the van. That did it – I yelled for them all to shut up, go to sleep and to let me try and drive in peace and quiet. Luckily, when we hit Dead Man’s Flats east of Canmore, the blizzard ended and we were able to drive the rest of the way easier, especially since all the chuckleheads had fallen asleep.
Another time, I drove our co-ed cross country team north of Edmonton in the family minivan we had named Old Red. Old Red was popular with all the kids, because back in the 1990s, it was one of the first to have a TV/DVD so all the kids thought that was pretty cool. My daughter was about six and had decided she wanted to come on this long road trip. She, like my son, loved being around high school athletes, and between them and me, they quickly learned the fine art of sarcasm. I do love sarcasm, and recently, I found a T-shirt that says it all: Sarcasm … It’s How I Hug.
While a movie was playing in Old Red, kids were either watching or snoozing. We were on a single lane highway, following a landscaping truck pulling a trailer of large spruce trees. These were the large ones with wrapped burlap root balls. Right in front of us, one of the trees fell right off the trailer ahead. I had just enough time to swerve into the left lane and right back and we just missed plowing into the tree. The parent next to me gasped, and I didn’t realize I had also held my breath, because I knew if we’d hit that tree or a vehicle was in that other lane, it would have been horrible. Once my nerves settled, I looked back to see the high school athletes and my little daughter blissfully oblivious to what just happened.
You’re supposed to be seated on a school bus, but sometimes on long trips, I’d start to go stir crazy. My favourite spot was to stand up front near the driver, down in the stair area. One trip had us going through Calgary. Our driver had to slam on the brakes hard and I was launched against the windshield, scaring the crap out of me. It was then I decided seats might not be a bad idea. The weird thing was, years later, our principal was driving us in the school bus for a PE trip. I was explaining to my “boss” about why I liked the stairwell. I even demonstrated my launch against the windshield. However, I didn’t consider that a bus windshield in -30C weather might be delicate. As I pantomimed my windshield impact, the entire right side of the windshield cracked and shattered in thin vein-like lines. What do you say to your principal at a time like this? What do you say to the 35 teenagers laughing and cheering the damage you’ve just done? Of course, as a good Canadian, I began to profusely apologize through my laughing. I even offered to pay, but luckily insurance was able to cover this; but it was one of my last bus trips and I never stood in the bus stairwell again. I may be a slow learner, but I do eventually learn.

(Random Thoughts is a slice of life humorous column that appears in the Strathmore Times, written by long-time resident, current mayor, husband, father and grandfather – Pat Fule. He is also a former town councillor, high school teacher and coach. If you would like to get in touch with Pat, you can send him an e-mail at Pat.fule@shaw.ca)