Driving Miss Crazy

 

My mother liked to talk. If she was reading the newspaper, so were you. She simply had to read it to anyone remotely within earshot. Just before our second child was born, she asked if we had picked a name for the baby. When I said we had not, she began reading names from the Ann Arbor phone book. There were 100,035 people in Ann Arbor at that time, so you can imagine how the afternoon went. The worst thing is we actually chose one of those names. No, the worst thing is that that name was on page 372. Everything interested her. I cannot recall a time when she wasn’t taking an evening class, and she was always excited about what she had learned and ready to share it. All of it. She was not a Cliff Notes kinda gal.

One holiday weekend, my mother and mother-in-law both were visiting. My mother-in-law liked to chat a bit, too When the two of them were together, it was a contest to see who could spin the most and the best tales. My husband performed a Lutheran mitzvah and took them for a drive around the German Amana Colonies so I could rest my ears. Two hours later, he came back. I thought perhaps he’d been mugged by a mad zither player or had some bad sauerkraut. He was not looking well at all. “What happened?” I asked. He told me both mothers read everything along the 15-mile route: traffic signs, for sale signs, mailboxes, billboards, store names, garage sale signs, and bumper stickers, and my mother had turned around backwards and read the ones facing the other way.

My relatively new brother-in-law was chosen to drive my mother a couple hundred miles to a family wedding. Poor thing didn’t know why he’d had this honor bestowed upon him. After a 250 miles soliloquy, she had to stop to breathe. Then, she turned to him and said, “You don’t talk much, do you?”

When the entire Michigan group was driving to Iowa City for the football game, there was no drawing of straws or rock-paper-scissors game; absolutely no one could face 16 hours in the car with my mom, especially when she was excited about a fun adventure. But, we wanted her to come because she loved these gatherings. So, we hired a friend of mine to drive to Michigan, bring her to Iowa , and then return her home. Got that? My entire extended family was coming from the same place she was, but no one could face that trip with her. I tell you this in case you think I am exaggerating her loquaciousness. I was very honest with my friend about the task he faced, telling him the driving was not going to be his biggest challenge. “I’ll be fine,” he said. I was busy cooking for the gang when his first call came. Oh, no, I thought; they’d only been on the road about two hours. “How’s it going?” I asked. Since he was in the car with her, all he could say was, “Oh, my. Oh, my my my.” No matter what I asked, he just said, “Oh, my.” They had 6 more hours to go. Money well spent, I’d say. It was an adventure we came to call Driving Miss Crazy.

My sister, my daughter, and I were driving home from Oregon after a wonderful Sierra Club trip. My mother had been on a trans-Canada train ride with Elderhostel. We were to collect her in Eugene and bring her home. From Oregon to Michigan via Iowa. My other sister had also been on our trek, but said she had to fly home to get back to work. (Uh huh.)The rest of us got in the car and off we went with my mother. And, off she went. She had been alone on her trip and had much to report. After a couple hours, I said, “My ears need a little break. Maybe you could read or take a little nap.” Those in the back seat were pretending to sleep, but I could see them stifling smiles and elbowing one another. My request was not granted. By the end of the first hour, she had only covered her trip from Michigan to Windsor; she was still talking about getting to the train. I said that truly, my ears were worn out and she needed to catch a little nap or read a book. At this point, I believe my tone was still quite conversational. As we sped through flat eastern Oregon, she gave her report on Ontario. By the time she reached Saskatchewan, I could take no more. I pulled over on the interstate, turned to my mother, and said, “If you do not stop talking for a little while, I will put you out of the car.” You think that was mean, right? But, I may as well have said the President was missing and Patrick Swayze married The Queen of Ethiopia. It had no impact whatsoever. This trip was 1,916 miles. By the time we hit Iowa City, I looked mildly deranged. Oh, my, indeed. I dropped off my daughter and then, off we went to return my mother to her home on the far side of Michigan, an additional 8-hour drive.

When she finally moved to assisted living, my mother called and told me they’d given her a job. She was made volunteer receptionist in the physical therapy room. That was one wise social worker who thought of that. My mom had been the school secretary, so she knew everyone in town, their histories and hysteries. She had the dirt on everyone. When I came to visit, I heard her talking and stayed out of sight around the corner. She was sitting at the desk, directing people here and there, telling them she had their grandchild in school or knew their husband, the shop teacher. I listened to her shaking down everyone waiting for PT. No one got to the whirlpool with being debriefed by Sylvia. She was in hog heaven.

Had she not had to give up a full-ride scholarship to support her mother and herself, I think my mother might have been a fine journalist or interviewer. She would have asked question after question. Idi Amin would have waved a white flag and given up the answer. If Aristotle had known my mother, he might have tweaked his theory: nature abhors a silence.