didn't check your blind spot

The mind is a fantastical feature of Being, isn't it. Seems to have no limits on what it can cling to and instantaneously call forth. All through life, memory moments come to mind, triggered by something we do, or see, or hear. This morning on my way out to see beloved ones at PCB, Kris and Malinda, as I crossed the new flyover between Port Panama City and Gulf Coast State College, I glanced quickly over my shoulder to check before changing lanes. Doing that, checking my blindspot, invariably, always, without fail, triggers a memory.

This was on our way home to Panama City from Columbus, Ohio on leave in 1972 or 73 or 74. Dates have been easy for me to approximate when I associate a memory with the car I'm driving at the time. The five of us, Linda, Malinda, Joe, Tass, and I, were in our 1973 Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser, an enormous, nine-passenger station wagon that I'd ordered built to my specifications from Key Olds in Columbus after Tass was born. It was a soft yellow color with the brown "wood" appliqué on the sides, cream-colored leather-like vinyl seats, "clam-shell" tailgate, fully loaded, there wasn't anything you could order that this car didn't have, even had an engine block heater to plug in the 110 volt outlet in the garage. That's not my airplane.

See, not only does the mind recall, it also wanders, and the older I get the farther it wanders, especially if there's a car involved.

Because Buicks have always been my favorite, I'd wanted a Buick station wagon, and if Buick had offered an Electra model (they called it Estate Wagon) I'd have ordered that, but the Buick wagon was a LeSabre body and interior, while the Olds was the luxurious top of the line Olds 98, about the same price.

We had that Olds over ten years and basically wore it out. Not long before we relocated from Pennsylvania to Florida in 1984, I filled its tank with premium gasoline and drove it the seven or eight miles from our house to the Goodwill Store on the far side of Harrisburg. By the time I got there, the gas tank was almost empty (no, really, gasoline burned by the smoking engine, not leaked). I showed Goodwill the lovely car, handed them keys and title, and they were delighted. So was I.

Back to battery. On that trip home, on an Interstate, buzzing south at 70 mph, I looked in the mirror and changed lanes to overtake the car ahead of me. From the middle seat right behind me came Malinda's sharp and stern admonishment, "Dad! You didn't check your blindspot, you're gonna kill us all". Unquote!

She was right, I hadn't. That she noticed clues me that she may have been taking driving lessons at high school, which also serves to help date that trip. Whatever, it's soon half a century ago, and it was the last time I changed lanes without first checking my blind spot. It comes to mind every time. Probably innumerable times a lifesaver.

Stirring thoughts, wandering mind, from other parts of the brain and heart comes more and other. Thoughts. Of blind spots. Introspection about my blind spots in life. I've not always checked them, in fact now that it's on the table, I've not always even been conscious of them. Especially with my children. Favoring. A parent doesn't like to see that, much less admit it, but it's true, and I'm sad about it. As a child growing up, I always felt like mama's favorite, which wasn't even particularly hidden, and looking back I remember a time or two when it put my sister in tears. It's taken me getting to this age and stage to remember and regret with deep sadness. We all knew it.

Moving to the next generation, I'm sure my own children knew it too. Favoring the youngest, always the youngest. And being fiercely and favoringly protective especially of the girls. I wonder how much hurt I caused. How could I have been so blind - - how can I BE so blind.

The circumstance escapes me, but I do recall years ago Linda repeating to me from a conversation she'd had with Malinda, her telling her mother, "but we always knew Dad loved us". That's an assuring memory. Malinda, who always did such thoughtful and loving things for me. Growing up, she was the oldest. For me, being the oldest was always the best place to be, but that wasn't the case for her. I should have done a better job checking my blind spots. Seeing it that way, because of this morning's trigger while I was driving out to see Malinda - - I realized humbly and sadly that I need to be, and to have been, more self aware.

In that Life Itself is mostly a self-grading exercise, I give myself maybe a C+. How're you doing? Check your blindspots and be careful about giving yourself an A.