The Lo-o-o-o-ong Trip to Canada

After Dick read my story about his brother Jim last week, he wondered if I'm going to write the other story we always laugh over with Jim. So while I'm bashing Jim, I'll tell that one too. Trust me, Jim is a really awesome brother-in-law, and I feel very secure in my relationship with him. Otherwise I would never share these stories about him!

The Lo-o-o-ong Trip to Canada

In June 1973 I was just realizing what it's really like to be in the first trimester of pregnancy - nauseated and quite irritable. Nevertheless, a big road trip had already been planned for months, and there was no thought of backing out. Dick's brother Bob and his wife were missionaries in northwestern Ontario, and we were going to go see them. We were also taking Dick's 16-year-old brother Jim along, as well as a teacher friend of mine (Lois) who was planning to spend a few weeks of summer mission work in that location.

We left very early and made amazing time the first day of our trip, getting all the way to Wisconsin Dells before we stopped for the night. I don't recall any major problems that day. But on day two poor Jim just started getting on my nerves. At some point (I think it was after we were in Ontario) we started hitting the longest, straightest stretches of highway any of us had ever seen. As far as the eye could see, both front and back, the straight roads just stretched right into the horizon. At first we all exclaimed over it, but eventually we got used to it. Not Jim. Every five minutes or so he would exclaim again, "I can't believe how straight these roads are!" or "Look how straight this road is!" or "Look! This road stays straight as far as you can see!" After a while I got to the point of being ready to hit him over the head with my pillow. But even being pregnant, I was not a violent person, so as far as I can remember I just endured his endless astonishment.

The really funny memory from that trip happened when we were crossing the border. The guard looked in our car trunk and chose Lois's suitcase to search. As we all stood around that trunk watching, he opened her suitcase, and what to our wondering eyes should appear but sanitary napkins neatly lying across the entire top of her belongings. And there stood 16-year-old Jim who had grown up with no sisters and was relatively unexposed to such female paraphernalia! Lois went bright red, Jim turned away, and I honestly don't remember if we or the guard made any comments. But even all these years later the memory of that moment just sends me into gales of laughter!

If Jim has been a patient man with his wife's pregnancies and the female paraphernalia in his half-female household, they can thank Lois and me for prepping him on that long ago trip!