Driving Down Memory Lane

When I was a girl in the 1970's, numerous siblings crammed into our family car for hours to literally drive over the river and through the woods to grandma's house. Back in the time before car seats and even rear seat belts, let alone iPods and portable / built-in DVD players, my family played games like "I-Spy," "Geography" (where you name a place that began with the last letter of the previous place name), "Traffic Bingo" and one of my dad's favorites -- "Spot the Straightaway."

While I now understand it to be urban legend, my dad explained that President Eisenhower designed the US Highway System to have a mile-long straightaway without overpasses "every so many-miles down the highway," so a plane could make an emergency landing. While easy in flat open sections of the mid-west, we lived in the Northeastern US, where highways built in the 1950's and 1960's meandered around existing cities and large towns, as well as wove through rolling hills and mountains.

But if we were quiet (hint-hint) and observant, we would be able to find those mile-long stretches. As a reward, the observer would get a window-seat at the next pit stop change. Having been crammed in the middle of the bench seats (front and back), we all knew the value of the prized window seats.

Two weeks ago, a small plane landed on a normally crowded New York City highway. This is not the first time; this will not be the last time. But when I heard about it, I smiled and remembered the "Spot the Straightaway" game of my youth ~ years after my dad, and now one of my siblings, passed away.

The reason I share this particular drive down memory lane is this:

• Share the time we have with each other, we never know when someone will no longer be in our lives.
• Even when we don't realize it, life's trials and tragedies shape us -- like a highway cutting straight along mountainous terrain -- to prepare us for future emergencies.
• Be observant; while the US didn't intentionally plan emergency straightaways, God does. There may be crisis in our lives, but God opens up a place for emergency landings too.

~ ESA