Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Does your car have a name?


When I was growing up, my family always had older model cars that were most often in "less than perfect" condition. For some odd reason, my family had a tradition of naming our cars. We had the Golden Goose, Betsy, etc., etc. These names represented our sentiment toward our car; a term of endearment.

In addition to naming our car, we would also talk to our car. There were many mornings when, due to a bad starter, our car would sputter and not start. Whenever this happened, my mother would pat it on the top of the dashboard and say, "come on Betsy" and just like clockwork, the car would start up. If we were running low on fuel, Mom would make a special plea, "just get us home, Betsy" and sure enough, we would make it safely to our destination with plenty of fuel to spare. It was magical. . . .as if our car had some sense of loyalty to the family, . . . as if our car knew that it had a special mission of transporting our rather large family to a fro safely. Of course these conversations with our car were always followed by my mother making the sign of the cross as a way of asking God to travel with us.

These were the traditions that as kids, we never thought to question. Looking back at these memories really makes me laugh. I think if I named my car or held conversations with it, my kids would probably really worry about me. I guess as kids, we never though to question it. We really thought that our Mom had superpowers and when she talked, our car listened! Although I have never named any of my cars, I still hold the tradition of asking God to travel with us on any road trip. . . that's mandatory! ♥

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