In Cars

Do you drive? Or do you pilot? You can drive a car, you can drive a truck, you can drive yourself crazy, but you pilot a van. Or at least I do - something about the way I'm placed at the front of this long cabin, surveying the sea of pavement ahead. Yes, it's a powerful feeling, a feeling of controlling destiny and passenger safety. In the driver's seat of my Plymouth Voyager, I feel just like Captain Kirk heading out to kick some Klingon ass. Phasers on stun. Engage the warp drive, Mr. Sulu.

I spend waaaaaaaay too much time in my van.

But the Green Bean blew up the other day. And I found myself driving a truck. Not an 18-wheeler, but an old pickup truck. An authentic truck, not some chrome-brilliant richboy's toy, but a real work truck. The kind of vehicle you can haul stuff in: 2X4s, shovels and rakes, lawn mowers, giant sacks of dog food, dogs, the annual deer carcass if you are of the hunter persuasion. And the view from the driver's seat changed.

In my van, I put on my sunglasses, crank up the stereo and recognize no one. I'm cruising. Sure, maybe I've got 4 kids screaming at each other and throwing food, but I'm cruising. In the truck, with the windows down (no a/c - this is a man's truck!), I'm right there in the middle of it all, smelling the tar on the pavement and hearing all these punkass fart mufflers. And my fellow truck drivers are recognizing me as one of their own. I get the Nod of Respect. I get the Wave of Brotherhood (nevermind that I'm a sister). They let me cut in front of them, because they know it's gonna be tough to hold that clutch on this grade in this traffic. I could get used to this. Courtesy, good ole boy style. In my van, I'm invisible, partly by choice but mostly because there are gazillions of vans in all the colors of the rainbow being piloted by my contemporaries, forty somethings (ouch) with kids and groceries. The truck made me visible, at least to other truck drivers, and ya know, everybody likes to be noticed now and then.

I'm thinking we van-o-moms need some of this camaraderie. Like motorcyclists do that low wave to each other in passing, we need a gesture of recognition.

Suggestions welcome!