Country Squire in Snow

One of the happiest memories I have growing up is the family station wagon. 

This was the Mom-mobile for the majority of my childhood. In 1979 my parents bought a VW van

 to take on a trip cross-country. 

We spent three weeks driving back East to New York, Virginia and Tennessee in that van, seeing all of the relatives my parents had left behind in their maiden voyage west with their only child in 1965. They left the University of Rochester and drove with my older brother to Washington, where they made our family home. 

The Ford Country Squire was full of memories. Sitting in the backseat facing backwards with no seatbelts. Being left behind in Kaiser's grocery mart because my Mom believed I was in the back seat cavern of the car. :) Watching in awe as one of our housecats climbed out of the open back passenger window and crossed the width of the front windshield as we drove down our street. It was probably far too long that we, my mother and I, sat in the car in wonderment and pealing laughter and watched the cat walk across the hood of our moving vehicle.

The Country Squire came to mind again this afternoon. I was driving down one of our neighborhood streets and saw a construction sign. The sign read "Ice Removal Crew" and there was a panoply of large construction vehicles massed on the side of the road. Lights flashing, loud rumbling noises and the requisite scraping sounds of ice removal equipment used to get rid of the dikes of compact snow and walls of ice that had collected over the cold winter of 2012 so far.

It was such a waste. How sad that so much energy and exhaust and effort was put to task to remove such a common sight in the Colorado landscape. What we need in this country is more Mama Pats and more Ford Country Squires. 

Mama Pat was from Rochester, NY. And while the ever so often emanance of a 'Rochester A' would commence from her lips ("You say an A but you draw it out and STOMP on it" was her explanantion of a New York accent) would remind us all of where she hailed from- it was her outright confidence behind the wheel during wintertime that cemented it. 

Mom would pull on her black floppy beret with the sparkly pailletes and her fishing creel bag and we would pile in around her in the Country Squire. I would always call 'shotgun' (okay I think it was more "I call the front seat"!) and clamber in beside her. With the blue nylon seatbelt and heavy buckle cinched tight around me, now the fun could start. 

First was the driveway. The house's driveway of my childhood was added post-purchase. My father and his friend Al poured the concrete, and there was some discussions about physics and angular velocity and engine compression and clutch mechanics when deciding the angle of the concrete. That was all nice and good, but in the end we ended with a driveway that required a brave amount of skill to master. I considered great accomplishment to drive up the driveway in reverse in our VW van without the car stalling as it reached the apex of the driveway. I think mathematicians would calculate the angle of the concrete driveway to be  approximately 35 degrees...

It required a punch on the ignition at approximately 10 ft down the driveway to allow for the vehicle to make it up the steep incline. Stories were varied about the danger of this driveway in certain weathers. My parents' friends would have discussions upon arriving at the house. "Better not park in the driveway. You'll never make it out in this ice." These conversations were confirmed by childhood friends who were sitting behind their parents in their own station wagons ;). 

So yes mastering the steep driveway and the van's automatic floor shifter was no small feat for those children who were required to learn how to drive on an automatic. And of course we all learned how to drive from Mom.

When the icy Pacific NW storms would hit, they were no little deal. There was lots of snow and lots of ice. And unlike balmy dry Colorado, ice would not melt away readily. It would melt and then like a rebellious child re-freeze overnight. It would rise up again each morning into ice dams in the middle of the streets and arterial roadways. These ice dams would rise to a rather impressive 1-2ft in height while the rest of the roadways would get driven down and compacted. Like lone sentinels of winter they would stand guard in the middle of the road. While Mama Pat was more cautious on the main thoroughfare of town (even though I recall she telling my father to 'Hit it!' when a teenager challenged him to a drag race) when she would turn the corner onto McMurray Ave all bets were off. 

Mama Pat would veer directly into the ice dams at full speed. She would then commence to give her ritual speech about how it was her Civic Duty to break up these ice dams. THe laws of safe roadway circumvention and maintaining safety by driving on your own side of the road did not apply. These ice dams were her nemesis, and had probably haunted her from back in the days of her own young adulthood driving down C Avenue. I can picture my beautiful mom in her red party dress and string of pearls as she drove the turquoise and white 57 Chevy sedan that she paid for herself. 

Nevermind that the Country Squire fishtailed like a dying fish on a icy boat-deck. Nevermind that our bellies would roil and turn like sacks of Jello Mama Pat would engineer the Country Squire like a galleon in a howling Greenland rainstorm. I could almost hear her now "Woo-hoooooo" she would call out when the Squire would make contact with a chunk of ice. The Squire would face the beast and swallow it underneath the car and eject it behind the tires. She was a lawful woman but when she saw an ice dam in the street she considered it above the law to commandeer the Country Squire and make the ice dam---disappear. 

I thought of Mama Pat as I witnessed all of the city personnel called upon to make haste of the ice dams collecting on Swallow Ave. The smell of exhaust and -sadly-some unknown harsh-smelling sulphurous smelling chemical reminded me of her bravery and her crazy spirit. It reminded me that sometimes it doesn't take chemicals or a crew of men and women in orange safety vests. 

It only takes one mother and a station wagon.

And so today after I passed the construction crews, I took it upon myself to perform my own civic duty. I commandeered my own 'Child-catcher' and plowed into the lanes of ice and snow that were lining up along all of the sidewalks. I am sure the house residents would not understand and nay may even be fearful of  the sight of a large SUV plowing through dams of ice in front of their houses. 

But my Mama taught me better.