08 SepThe Great Race

There are seven in my family who attend church. The final meeting of the day has us in different classrooms scattered all over the church. Trying to round up everyone after church can be difficult. One week we had come home to eat Sunday dinner. It was only then that we realized that we had left one of the kids at church. I rushed back to find my son wandering the halls looking for us. I acted like I had been looking for him, too, and everything was fine.

Today we came to church in two cars. We can all fit into one vehicle, but Glory was late getting ready. My teenage daughter stayed behind to give her little sister a ride when she was ready. After church I had the usual hard time finding all the members of my family.

“I think Mom is going with Clory and Glory,” Story told me.

Hoping we weren’t leaving anyone behind I headed out to the car with my sons. There I saw the rest of my family heading toward the minivan.

“Hurry, Dad. They are leaving already,” Jory said.

I backed out in front of them to block their route.

“Go straight up this street, Dad. That way we won’t have the stop sign.” My son knows our small town streets well.

As I headed up the street my son looked over his shoulder. He saw the van turn to take the usual route. Something in the manner of the van or the manner of the driver (my teenage daughter) clued him in.

“They are racing us, Dad. Step on it!”

The race was on. We shot up Center Street being vigilant at each of the five uncontrolled intersections. As we crossed these intersections my boys kept an eye out for the van one street over.  We were ahead by one block going east; but we were behind one block going south. Our only hope would be the stop sign they would face on 5^th East.  I took a right on 5^th East fishtailing as I did (not really—I’m driving a Honda Civic with 250,000 miles on it). We headed for 1^st South with our house just beyond. Suddenly the van came shooting into view. It was going to be close, but she had a stop sign. That stop sign just might give us the edge we need to pull ahead. It depended on how daring my daughter would be to pull out in front of us. She was daring. She didn’t even slow down for the stop sign. I saw her leaning forward over the steering wheel, blood in her eye as she glanced my way. She wasn’t going lose. Everyone else in the van was hanging on to whatever was available, but they appeared to be cheering her on. My wife, the teacher of responsibility, had a big grin on her face.

“She ran the stop sign!” yelled my eight-year-old. “No fair.”

“She’s grounded,” I muttered.

She turned into the circular drive sending gravel spraying out into the road. I thought the gravel might slow her down. I pulled into the other end of the circular drive still thinking I could beat her to the front door. Our vehicles stopped bumper to bumper, glaring at each other, next to the front door.

It wasn’t over yet. The vehicle doors flew open. It seemed that to win the vehicles occupants had to get into the house first. There was a jumble of bodies climbing the front steps, one of which was my wife. The front door flew open. Autumn ran interference for the van and held back her little brother. The rest practically fell into the entryway on top of each other. The van won because while they were all fighting to get in the house I was still struggling pull my heavy body out of that tiny car. There was general laughter and chatter. Then, the race over, the victors crowned, everyone dispersed to change clothes and hunt for the best leftovers for dinner. Mark off another Sunday afternoon in the Anderson family.