As Jerry drove, he eventually managed to tune out the noise. Yes, tune it out he did, at seventy mph down the Pennsylvania Turnpike.  Soon a state policeman was on our tail signaling us to pull over.  Jerry got out of the car and put up both hands.

        “I’m guilty. I have five kids, my wife, mother, and mother-in-law in that car and they all have to go to the bathroom. Just give me my ticket.”

        “You have enough problems, Buddy. I can’t give you a ticket. Just slow down.”

        From then on it seemed that everyone took to Red.  He always had room for one more as we piled in for swim meets, car pools, football games, and class trips.

        One winter, stuffed with skis, groceries and kids, Red took us on a weeklong ski vacation, to meet four other families, at Smuggler’s Notch, Vermont, what we soon called “the coldest ski resort in the U.S.A.”  On the day we left to drive home the temperature dropped to twenty-two below zero.  Red was one of the few cars that would start that morning.  The other families  had a long wait until someone could jump start their cars so we took two of their children with us.

        Twenty miles later, Jerry rolled down his frosty window to navigate a turn and it shattered into more than a million pieces.  We were freezing.  The extreme cold had caused an automotive emergency in that small Vermont town and its one service station was jammed with other holiday skiers with car trouble.  Jerry and I felt hopeless as we waited our turn to talk to the attendant.

        “You folks got a real problem.  Gotta have special tools to fix that window.  Only Joe Whitford up on the mountain got them tools.  Doubt you’ll catch him though. On a day like this he’ll be out on the road.”

        We followed his directions to Joe’s place and luck was with us.  We did catch him at home grabbing lunch.  After two hours of work, he replaced our window and only charged us ten dollars. 

        We were finally on our way. Yes, on our way, with eight hungry kids, right into a wild, Connecticut blizzard.  But all ended well that night as we unloaded Red at a surprise stop at Jerry’s brother’s house in Avon, where the kids all slept on the floor.

        Most of our long trips started with me reading to the kids and ended with Jerry and John Denver singing them to sleep.  On one long trip to Maine, I read The Pushcart War. We drove for twelve hours with only a few stops and when we arrived in Tenants Harbor, at our destination, the children begged,         “Daddy, keep going. We want to hear the end.”  
 
        The next year, when we drove to New Hampshire, I read Cheaper by the Dozen but the last pages were too sad for me to read aloud so I let the kids each read the ending to themselves.

        Red was much more than horsepower to us.  Like a loyal St. Bernard or golden retriever he never complained as he lugged around kids and hauled our possessions from house to house.  He carried ladders and paint, the summer Erik and Stephanie painted houses for College Pro Painters, loads of mulch for Jerry’s gardens, and odd pieces of furniture I found at garage sales.
        I remember the feeling of riding late at night, our whole family together in silence, some sleeping or dreaming in the back, with our youngest, Paul, squeezed in between Jerry and me in the front. We all knew that Dad and Red would keep us safe. I was one of the children on those quiet nights.

        Not until we asked Red to pull “Bert the Boat” did we have any trouble.  We were spending our summer vacation on Lake Winnipesaukee, in New Hampshire.  We had bought a used boat and trailer, and hooked it up to Red.  Jerry practiced backing up the trailer and making turns before we all climbed into Red and started our drive to New Hampshire.

        After an overnight stop in Massachusetts, we were anxious to get to the lake.  We planned to hit the road after a quick stop for breakfast at the local McDonalds.  I was surprised when I realized that Jerry was headed for the drive-thru window with the boat in tow.

        “I don’t think we should do this “I warned, but Jerry was pleased with how well he had been maneuvering the rig.
        “No problem,” he said.

        By now we were in the drive-thru lane.  There were cars in front and eight or more cars in back of us.  Oh, yes, Red fit; but Bert the Boat was another question.  We were stuck; and no one was about to back up.  Some of the kids were hiding on the floor from embarrassment and Kristin jumped out to go to the ladies room.  I was doing my best to remain cool and not say “Didn’t I TELL YOU?”

        Jerry got out of the car to negotiate with the other drivers behind us who seemed determined not to budge.

        “I promise that I will personally insure your place in line. Just PLEASE let us back up.”
 
        Someone kindly did pull out from behind, and as Jerry backed the cumbersome car and trailer out of line, he yelled to Kristin who was coming from the ladies room, “Go to the window and pick up our order.”

         Sheepishly, she took the cartons of pancakes, egg McMuffins, and scrambled eggs and carried them to the car.  As we pulled out on to the road, Paul whined from the back of the car.
        “I didn’t get mine.”

        When Jerry clicked on the turn signal to go back, there was a chorus of voices in the car. 

        “No Dad.” We’re fine.”

        “Don’t go back.”

        “Please.”

         “Paul can have mine.”

        It was one of the few times they were most all willing to share.

        We had a wonderful two week stay at the lake and Bert was a joy to have. The kids water skied, fished, and went to the market by boat.  I poked in old barns and antique stores and found an iron bed, a blanket chest, and a small bureau for Erik’s room.

        The day we packed up to go home we put the new purchases in the back of Bert.  As we pulled out on to Route Thirty-three Erik said, “Dad, there looks like there’s a bubble in the tire of the trailer.”

        “Don’t worry about it,” Jerry replied.

        We had a smooth ride, with little traffic, and stopped in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, for the college bound kids to see Boston College.  We hit Route Ninety–one just as it was getting dark and suddenly the car was swerving and pulling toward the narrow shoulder. The boat trailer had a flat.

        “No problem,” Jerry assured me.  “We have a spare.”

        He and Erik dug out the car jack from under our belongings in the back of Red.  But the lug wrench for Red was twice as big as the lugs on the tires on the trailer.

        “I’ll handle this. I’ll get someone to help us,” said Jerry, and he proceeded to stand out along the busy highway waving and pointing to the wrench. Erik, who was sixteen, looked at his father and shook his head.

        “Mom, if you were driving by and saw a six- foot -three man, as big as Dad, waving a lug wrench at you, would you stop? Would you think he needed a wrench? We’ll never get out of here.”  I knew Erik was making sense.

        No sooner had we convinced Jerry to put down the wrench when two young men in a VW stopped to help us.  Their wrench did the job.  The spare was on the trailer and our Samaritans waved good-bye from their Beetle. 

        As Jerry and Erik lowered the trailer onto the road they discovered the spare was flat.

        “What are we going to do now?”  I was beginning to think we were there for the night when a young policeman stopped. He helped remove the flat tire and took Jerry to get air at the nearest gas station, eighteen miles away.

        I sat tightly in Red with the kids on the narrow shoulder, worrying someone would hit us.  We had no lights because the trailer lights wire, which had been attached to our car, had dragged along the road and shorted out all the lights.  Each time a big truck sped by we would rock back and forth.  When Erik got out and waved a flashlight, so drivers could see us, my anxiety increased.

        It seemed like forever before Jerry and the policeman arrived with the inflated spare, but in minutes we were ready to roll; except, no lights. 

        “I can’t let you drive without lights,” said the policeman. It was the first time Jerry seemed really defeated.

        “No problem, Dad,” said Erik.  In Drivers Ed he had learned about fuses. He took the fuse from the windshield wipers and replaced the light fuse.  Like magic we had lights and the policeman allowed us to drive on.

        “You’ll be OK now, “he said.  “Just as long as it doesn’t rain.”

        I can still see Jerry steering with this head out of the driver side window in the teeming rain as we pulled into a Holiday Inn in Hartford where we waited out the storm.

        The next day was Sunday.  The rain had stopped. We had a hard time finding an automotive store to provide us with a fuse, but Red did get us home in seven pieces. It took a few months to get the swollen drawers of the new bureau dried out enough to open. 

         Red pulled through that fall and, with the help of Howard the mechanic, slipped through another State inspection.

        One day in December my nephew called laughing on the phone.

        “Aunt Kris, I just saw Gramma Evie driving through Wayne in Big Red with a Christmas tree on top. She could hardly see over the steering wheel.”

        My white-haired mother-in-law, Evie, who stayed with us for the holidays, rarely drove any of our cars, especially Big Red. One of the kids had coaxed her into picking him up that day.  Gramma never noticed that the tree, which we had bought the day before, was still roped to the top of the car when she climbed in and propped herself up with a pillow. No doubt she did not attempt to parallel park that day.

         Our children all learned how to drive practicing on Big Red.  I knew they were good drivers when they could steer Red over the narrow railroad bridge near our house. When I was behind the wheel, I occasionally got honks and waves from kids I hardly knew.

         Red was painted blue and white for the Episcopal Academy Haverford School rivalry for a few years, and “Beat the Fords” dripped with the fall rains.  Soon we began slapping college stickers on Red’s back window.
 
        The day his odometer passed the 200,000 mile mark we all cheered and I announced that maybe in a few years I would get a little convertible.  But I was in no hurry.