Between the Ditches

 

A while back I got a call from one of my sons at an odd time.  He was attending college and, at that time of the morning, he should have been on his way to his first class of the day.

“Dad, the car’s OK, but…”

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He had been on his way to class when he’d lost control of the vehicle for just a split second, just long enough for the right tires to drop off the shoulder, which was almost a foot high for a short distance…right there.

I went into dad mode, “Are you OK?  Any damage to the car?  Will I be able to pull you out or do I need to call Dean (my friend who owns a tow truck)?”

“I don’t know,” he answered.  “I think so.”

After clarifying which questions went with which answers I dropped into the secondary stage of dad mode, “You see why I tell you not to text and drive now, don’t you?”

“I wasn’t texting,” he defended.

“Changing your radio station?”

“No.”

“On the phone?”

“No.”

“So why did you run off the road?”

“Well,” he explained, “I was driving along, eating pancakes…”

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I’m quite proud of how smart my sons are.  They have well above average intelligence and problem-solving skills that have led them to careers as engineers, teachers, high voltage electricians, etc.

One of the negative aspects of being so smart is that they have to gain a little maturity before they learn that not every problem needs to be solved by cutting time.  You can’t fix everything by doing it faster.

In other words, he should have gotten up earlier and eaten breakfast, rather than inventing pancakes-n-syrup-in-a-bowl to eat on the road.

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A few years prior to the pancake episode, another of my sons called me.  He was working for area farmers that summer and spent a lot of time on gravel or dirt roads.  During wet weather those roads can get quite sloppy.  To a young man in his early twenties, even one who’s attending college, the sight of a slick, muddy road screams out, “drive like an idiot!”

I have to admit, I have personal experience with hearing that command.

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Hitting the gas as he rounded a corner sent him sliding sideways down the road.  It was a lot of fun.  Sliding sideways into the ditch wasn’t.

Thus the phone call.

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At that time our family only owned one pickup truck and, since it was currently sitting sideways in a ditch, I called my friend Dean, who owns a tow truck.

Contrary to what my sons think I was once a young man.  Before that I was even a boy.  I learned a lot of lessons in that time, many of them the hard way.  I’ll bet Dean was the same.  Thus our conversation with my son was more teasing than griping.  We figured he had already learned the lesson.

The truck was soon out of the ditch and the boy was sent on his way.

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A couple days later, I got another call.  Same son.  This time he was driving down the highway and someone tried to pass him, but cut back over too soon…way to soon.  According to my boy, as the other driver came over, my son hit his brakes and swerved to the right.  His right tires dropped off the pavement onto the shoulder, which was very soft due to the recent rains.  The spongy shoulder sucked the vehicle off the side and down into the ditch.

My son was stuck in a ditch for the second time in three days.

I made a call and Dean and I rendezvoused at the site.  More teasing, but a little more pointed this time, and the boy was out of the ditch and on his way.

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A few more days and, you guessed it, I got a call.  Guess who.  Nope, not the same son.  This time it was Dean.  Oh, it was the same son who had slid off into a ditch, but he had called Dean directly rather than calling me first.  I suspect he wanted to cut out the middle man, and a more pointed father/son discussion.

My friend loves my sons almost as much as he does his own son, so I noticed the concern in his voice as he told me about pulling my boy out of a ditch for the third time in a week.

I got it.

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This time it was me making a phone call…to my “fresh-out-of-the-ditch” son.

“Hey, Kiddo,” I started.  “I hear you went ditch-diving again today.”

He verified the mishap.

With six sons, I’m an experience father, and I know my kids.  I know I can get the message across with just a few words and I don’t have to beat them down with the lesson for them to understand.

I did it anyway.

“Do you know how lucky you are?  Three different vehicles in three ditches in one week.  It’s time to get your ‘stuff’ together, TODAY.”

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I could tell by his tone that he got the message so I decided to end the phone call.  I often like to end a serious conversation on a lighter note, so I added, “By the way, Dean called.  He wants to know if he can put his tow truck away.”

He got it.  No more ditch diving for that son.

I just hope Mr. “Pancakes-To-Go” learns his lesson a little quicker.

 

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