When I graduated from high school in 1987, my mom was really looking forward to sending me off to college. By "sending off," I mean the whole experience of putting your child on a plane, driving them to the airport, and watching them fly off into the sunset, knowing that you have set them on their trajectory to start the next phase of their life.
So you can imagine the dilemma my mom had in deciding whether she would allow her son to ride in a pickup truck for 900 miles from Pine Bluff, Arkansas to Tampa, Florida.
In retrospect, it probably was not as hard considering the person who asked, my friend, John.
John Smith and I grew up together. While I grew up in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, he grew up in Star City, Arkansas. At the time, Star City was a small town with very few schools, so a lot of the kids from Star City would come to school in Pine Bluff. John and I had known each other and loved each other for most of our lives. His sister was a student of my mother's. John and I were in JROTC in high school together, and it was not uncommon for us to hang out and be fairly active in a variety of different organizations together.
When August 1987 came after we graduated, it presented a unique situation. John and I had both enrolled at the University of Tampa. What's funny is that neither one of us actually talked to each other about how we were going to get down there, but we knew we were both going there.
I can still remember the conversation that he had with me because both he and I came from two poor households. I was in a single-parent household, and he was in a family where his father was an over-the-road trucker, and his mother was a stay-at-home mom.
I still remember him coming up to me, telling me that his parents couldn't afford to fly him to Florida, but they were able to get him an old pickup truck. If I remember correctly, initially, the idea was that his father would ride down with him to Florida and then drive the truck back. However, his father could not drive because he had a job to do as an over-the-road trucker, which prevented him from being able to drive. The truck was a stick shift, and his mom did not know how to drive one, so that prevented her from being able to drive as well. His parents did not feel comfortable letting him drive down by himself, so they told him that they would permit him to drive down to Florida only if someone would go with him, and the only person he could think of was me, since we were both going to the same school.
So here I am in a situation where John comes and tells me about this whole situation and wants to know if I'd be okay with riding with him down to Florida. I didn't know how to drive a stick shift at the time, but I was going to learn if I was going to ride with him because he couldn't do the drive all by himself, and since we were both going to university and would have to come back home together, it only made sense that I learned.
When he asked me, I didn't have a problem at all because I was excited about the possibility of getting on the road, driving through areas I've never been. I had driven to Mississippi before and been in Louisiana once or twice, but now we were talking about driving through Alabama and into Florida, so this was all exciting to me.
Now the person we had to sell this idea to was my mom. I remember this was a time when there was no satellite, no GPS, no cell phone. We literally would be hopping in the car and driving 900 miles without any ability to let them know what was happening unless we stopped at a gas station and used a payphone. I can only imagine what was going through my mom's mind when she was faced with having her 18-year-old son standing in front of her, asking her to let me ride with John.
It was hilarious because John made his case and explained everything to my mom, and I told my mom that I had no problems riding with him and was looking forward to it if that was okay. I don't know if either one of us thought she would say yes, but to our surprise, she agreed. So the next thing we knew, a few weeks later, John came over in this very old, raggedy pickup truck, I loaded my gear in the back, and off we went, embarking on the drive of our lifetime at the age of 18 to a place we had never been before.
Looking back, I am often amazed that John and I made the drive. We had a few things happen during the time that were very colorful, and we ended up going out of the way a few times. Plus, John had to teach me how to drive a stick shift, which was a whole new adventure in itself. But the thing that really stood out was that my mom gave us the ability to make this journey, and I felt blessed because I had the opportunity to make a journey that I'd never done before, with someone I had known most of my childhood.
I've always felt blessed and privileged to have had the opportunity to make that drive. So many times, when faced with the unknown, we usually face these challenges by ourselves. However, in this situation, I had the opportunity to do it with a friend I had known throughout most of my childhood. I'm sure my mother would've gotten me down to college one way or the other, but I can confidently say that if it hadn't been for her giving me the opportunity to drive with John, I don't think I would've had as memorable a trip as I did during those times going back and forth. We all need a John in our lives who will encourage us to try a new adventure and is willing to do it right along with us.
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