Carpool 2011

Carpool 2011

It came to me as I was driving to Costco and waited at the Honokohau stoplight. You sit watching and waiting for your lane to be graced with the green and begin to think of of things coming up in the days ahead you should start preparing for. At least I do, or did so anyway this afternoon. And I thought of the high school carpool.

Each Monday for nine months of the school year I have to drive alone to Waimea and  return with a herd of grumpy, tired teenagers. Since we have only four people in the carpool each parent must also drive one Friday per month.  I have been doing this now for six years and have another four to go before my son Luke graduates from high school and either goes away to college or to Camp Pendleton USMC Boot camp. So I'm over the hump and on the down hill side of carpool I guess. It has been an interesting ride, so to speak. Six years of listening to varied teenagers talk unguarded to each other about their lives each week. Why they thought that I was either deaf or not paying attention I'll never understand.

The first four years with Leilani in the carpool we never had another girl, just three various boys and her for those years. Looking back I have made an observation I think interesting. The boys all got into the car and gave each other a ration of crap about something or other they were certain another had done stupid that day and then one by one they each fell asleep. The last two years have been all girls in the carpool. They climb in and happily talk about this and that which happened in their day and then they each silently started doing homework for the remainder of the drive to Kona. No wonder there are more girls in todays colleges.

For those of you not acquainted with Waimea or Kona I should tell you they are one full hour apart by car, and as such carpool is no small matter. It's not like some of you had when your kids were in school: ten minutes to pick them up and another ten or fifteen to drop them at their home. No, this is a full two hours per week of driving on top of the trips to school to pick up a sick kid, attend a game or a performance they are in or the parent teacher conferences and any number of unscheduled two hour trips I have to make each year. Somebody start drilling some damn oil wells somewhere soon cause I can't afford another four years of trips to Waimea at $4.57 a gallon {Costco's gas pump this week}.

But back to what it was I came to while awaiting the light to change today:I realized that I drove my last carpool for the year on Thursday! I am done with carpool until August! I felt absolutely liberated, like the kids feel when the finish their last day of the school year. At last I was free! Till the next school year begins anyhow. Each week I have had to plan for that two hour drive, make sure the car is full of gas, there are snacks and water for the hungry youths to partake of and who to call when I have a night job and can't drive that day? Were I a stay at home mom I might relish a weekly chance to get out of the house for a few hours and see the country side of Hawaii. But for me it is a chore and not to belabor the point I have been doing it for six years!

Well today I became happy realizing my carpool driving days are over for the school year. I walked the dogs this afternoon and decided to celebrate by sitting on the lanai, drinking a beer and watching the sunset.

Aloha from Brian's Lanai...