On Driving a Minivan

          There are few experiences more humbling in the life of a teenage boy than driving a minivan. It’s not the inability to parallel park, or the complete unwieldiness that makes it such a humiliating experience—it’s that moment when you pull up to a stoplight, punk rock screaming out of your windows, and see the stares from the people next to you. It’s that moment when you’re walking out of work with a fellow employee who goes to his pimped out Mustang, while you fiddle with your minivan keys, because the clicker broke five years ago. It’s because nine out of ten homeschool moms agree that the minivan is the most practical vehicle for a mid-sized family.

          Practical. I hated that word. Practical isn’t sexy. Practical doesn’t purr while idling, or have a subwoofer that could double as a defibrillator. Practical is embarrassing.

          My minivan was a 1996 Dodge Caravan that was white before the paint started peeling. ’96 was a time before the DVD screens and seat-warmers made minivans luxury cruisers. No, ’96 was the year they just started putting two side doors on minivans instead of one. My family was pretty excited about that.

          The inside of my minivan was always a wreck—the CD player didn’t spit out the CD unless you stuck a pen into the slot while holding eject; the carpet had a giant stain courtesy of a Rt. 44 cherry slush, and the stuck locks made a loud grinding sound that frightened adults and amused small children. I put that car through a lot of grief—hours of roadtrips, two fender-benders, a speeding ticket, and one busted taillight.

          My minivan was like that family member that constantly embarrasses you, but you’ve been through so much, that you somehow look at it with a mixture of affection and ridicule. I slept in the backseat many times, drove with it from Arizona to Virginia, and even picked up my first date in that minivan.

          Memories are funny things—little landmines in your brain that are set off by the strangest things. This morning, I had a cup of PG Tips, and for a brief moment, I was no longer driving between Dayton and Chattanooga—I was on the back lawn of the Greatham L’Abri, taking one of two daily tea breaks, after chopping wood all morning. I’m not even sure I like the taste of that tea—I just know that every time I take a sip, I am back in that serene, uncomplicated memory.

          There was another time, between high school and college, I was traveling with an organization, teaching kids about state government. Every other week, I would leave my body wash at a host home, so I got in the habit of buying the cheapest brand WalMart sells (Irish Springs, original scent). Sophomore year of college, and several body wash scents later, I pick up the same bottle, and for hours I could not shake the memories of those crazy three months. Memories of cross-country roadtrips, and sleepless weeks spent in state capitols pretending to be in my mid-twenties in order to get past security guards (if you act confident and dress in a suit, you can get away with almost anything).

          They say that smell especially is linked to memory—the olfactory bulb is part of the brain's limbic system, and has access to the amygdala, which processes emotion, and the hippocampus, which is responsible for associative learning. These, when combined with conditioned responses, produce memories connected to certain stimuli. Also, there is no Santa Claus.

          There’s a box in the shelf in my closet back home that I haven’t opened in a while. This tin used to house those sugar cookies with the little wrappers that usually get pushed to the back of potluck tables. Now it houses all the things that ten-year-old me thought was cool. There are birthday cards, lego pieces, and cheap plastic party favors. Every tiny object had significance, and I could still tell you why those were in there. There was my lucky reddish rock that I fished out of a stream at camp that fit perfectly in the palm of my hand, and a bookmark from the library’s summer reading program (I had been the third fastest to complete their reading chart). What might look like a broken matchbox car to you was the fastest vehicle in the Offroads Dirt Racing Championship of ’99. Every thing that ten-year-old me valued was put in that box.

          There’s also a box for twelve-year-old me in the bookcase in my room at home. And fifteen-year-old me. And eighteen-year-old me. And stuck between my desk and bed in my dorm room, there’s one for almost twenty-one-year-old me.

          This summer, my minivan passed away. He kept stalling out, and after several attempts at resuscitation, we were told the worst—his transmission had given out. This van has been in my life since I was six. One day while I was at work, some men came by to dispose of the remains.

          Maybe I’m just sentimental, but I felt an affection for that dying piece of junk that I’d never felt while he was living. I wish I’d been less embarrassed of him in real life. I wish I’d taken better care of him, and made less soccer mom jokes. Because now that he’s gone … that’s it. He now exists in memory and photographs, and whatever mechanical organs were donated by the junkyard where he went.

          Every so often, I see another van just like it (that generation of minivans are like the Baby Boomers—not quite gone, but they’re on their way out). For just a moment, my amygdala and hippocampus fire, and I pull a memory out of my mental cookie tin.

And one day, I hope that my son will be forced to drive an ugly car that makes him realize that it’s not how you get somewhere that matters—it’s what goes in that box.