Page 8 - KCRPCA July Aug 2018

EDITOR’S COLUMN
Stan Thorne
to say no.
It is an odd time in your life when your kids no longer need you. They’d rather spend time at the mall with friends than at home with you. I guess it means you are doing your job right. You are training them to leave the nest. Sometimes I just wish it was not so quick.
Such was the case when I picked up my oldest from her friend’s house. It was late, pushing 10:00, with an early meeting in the morning. She hopped in the car, not even looking at me, more interested in the latest Snap Chat post.
Half way out the neighborhood, she asked “Daddy, will you take me for a drive?”
There are moments in life that you need to hold onto. This was one of them. I looked at her, down shifted and said, “I’d
I rolled the windows down, letting in the cool evening air. The stars were visible through the open sunroof. We were being serenaded by my favorite Van Morrison CD. And that’s when it happened. She turned her phone off. I smiled as she looked out the window, hair blowing in the wind. We did not speak. We didn’t have to. The wind and the rising and falling of the exhaust did it for us.
Dipping and turning, the road played hide ‘n seek with my headlights. First there and then not, only to reveal itself again. My daughter’s out stretched hand was flying through the air with the rise and fall of the car. She looked at me and smiled.
I believe in magic. It is the moment in time when everything seems perfect. This was one of those nights.
Rounding the last corner brought us onto a blast up the highway. Wind rushed through the cabin like a Kansas tornado, swirling my daughter’s hair and hiding her face. She giggled.
Exiting the highway and passing one stoplight brought us home. Pulling into the driveway, she hopped out of the car. A fleeting “Thanks, Dad” was tossed to me as she turned on her phone.
And just like that, she was gone again.
Sometimes It Pays To Take
TDHE LONG WAY HOME
addy can we go for a drive?”, she love to.” I turned left onto a back-county said, hopping into The Ghost. It road, a 30-minute loop that dances along was already 10:00, but who was I rural farmland and Cedar Creek.
8
Jul / Aug 2018
- Stan