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Signs of Life

Nancy L. Horner

Why People Fly

We were just exiting our neighborhood on the first leg of a two-day journey to Colorado when we heard a crash noise in the van.

"What was that?" I asked the kids.

There was a brief pause. "Uh, it was the TV."

"Shoot." We'd gone less than a mile and disaster had struck.

The eldest of our children has always traveled so well that it used to baffle me when people told me they stopped taking vacations because of their youngsters. "Why on earth would they stay home merely because they have a child?" I'd wonder. As far as I could see, you just packed them up and took off---easy as pie.

Then, our second son arrived. Unlike Daniel, who could entertain himself for hours on end with a small bucket of toys and books, William was nearly impossible to keep occupied. He would dump his bucket upside-down, play with each toy for approximately 30 seconds, throw them either at his brother or the floor, and then begin to wail. For several years, an adult had to sit in the backseat to read to him and otherwise distract him. Then, David came up with a brilliant plan: buy a TV-VCR that plugged into the cigarette lighter and fry the kid's brain for a good portion of the drive. The TV had been our salvation on our regular 9-hour jaunts to Oklahoma.

"Think it'll still work?" I asked David.

"Didn't sound good."

"Well, let's go find out."

We circled through the gas station parking lot and returned home to plug the TV into the outdoor electrical socket on our porch. The screen was totally blank; no power, whatsoever.

"Now what?" I glanced into the back seat, where our little wiggle worm was already on the verge of making his brother scream.

"The laptop has a DVD player."

"But we don't own any DVDs."

"We can buy some on the way. Hey, it's better than the alternative."

Ugh, the alternative. 22 hours of "Mom! He pinched me!" I nodded and David fetched the laptop. We would worry about an adapter and a DVD worth watching when we were in Arkansas and the stores were open. Hopefully, William would fall asleep until that point.

We hopped back into the van and hit the highway. Just a few minutes after crossing the Mississippi River Bridge into Louisiana, we were jolted by a huge "Whump!" on the front window. For a few long seconds, as we all recovered our breath, we simply stared at the dead bird that had hit the windshield on the driver's side. Then, everyone in the van said, "Ewwww" in unison and we all laughed at the timing.

The bird lay on the windshield with his foot caught under the windshield wiper and one lifeless wing flapping vigorously. We were trying to decide whether or not we should pull over to remove the dead body when, as suddenly as he had hit the windshield, the bird was lifted upwards. "Bumpita, bumpita, bumpita," went his body, all the way across the top of the van.

A leg and some feathers, tucked into the windshield wiper, were all that remained. That did it. We laughed so hard we all had tears streaming down our faces. A family in a large SUV passed by, waving and chuckling, gesturing that they'd seen the poor animal bounce across the top of our van. We waved back at them.

Finally, as we all calmed down and wiped the tears of laughter away, the van became quiet for a moment. "I just want you to know," David said, "that if anything else happens, I'm turning around and we're going home."

"Fine by me," I answered.

We had gone less than 20 miles. Fortunately, no third disaster ever struck; but for the next three hours, I think we all were quietly waiting for a meteor to fall on us and make the next great thump.