It was a gorgeous summer morning as I, my brother David, sister
Marcia, mom, dad, and baby girl were traveling home to Laramie from
Colorado Springs where we had gone to visit my grandma. The atmosphere
in the car was fun and filled with laughter. We were glad to be together. Our
chatter was constant and our conversations often overlapped. One learned
young that if you want to be heard in my family, you must merely speak
louder than everyone else. Or, you might simply say, 'Would you please shut
up for a minute so I can say something important?' We all understood that
such a plain and politely spoken command was not meant to be offensive or
at all disrespectful.
We were a bit louder than usual that morning as we had great plans for
the day. Since we had to travel through Denver, we all agreed that we should
eat at a nice restaurant and then go to the zoo where we could eat some more
and see the animals then probably eat some more.
Daddy was a bit tense and growly, his usual demeanor when traffic
was thick as it was on that Friday morning. 'Everyone and their Grandma is
on this one road to Denver,' he grumbled. My Daddy is claustrophobic. He
hates traffic which is the main reason I think we moved long ago to
Wyoming, the land of wide-open spaces. 'You can drive more than a
hundred miles on a Wyoming highway without seeing another car,' Daddy
would often brag.
That was not the case, however, in Colorado. The cars were lined up
one after another, traveling 75 miles per hour, to the horizon and beyond. We
passengers paid scant attention to the outside world as we were involved in a
thought-provoking discussion...