8/17/05; by Ruth Zaslow

Field Interviews

A Ford Focus and a blue Suburban.

The Suburban—we live in a development that right now is a ways from the nearest shopping so we need something we can go to the shopping center in. We have a large family, four kids, and I don’t like mini-vans. They don’t have enough storage.

My husband wanted something that had fuel economy. A friend of mine’s husband is a manager of a hertz rent-a-car office and he got us a “friends and family” price on the focus. It was a good deal.

We go camping. We go to the shopping center couple of times a week and errands activities for the kids, we go to church, we go to visit my folks or my husband’s. Seems like we run around a lot. And we’re all involved.

It’s about a 20 minute drive usually,. The radio is on. There is eating. Sometimes bickering. We play games, like Eye Spy. Sometimes we pray. It’s also a good conversation time. Sometimes I talk on my cell phone. Sometimes the animals go with us—we have two dogs.

Yeah. With four kids, my husband or I try at last once a week to take just one of our kids out alone. So in the car, we’re just sitting, and it’s a good chance to see if there’s anything that kid wants to talk about: school, church, sports, anything.

Like recently with my 11 year old daughter. We had a mother-daughter date. In the car, we listened to this CD by Rebecca St. James. Have you heard of her? She’s a singer about 17 years old—no I guess she’s older now. She sings and talks to the kids about abstinence, purity, relationships. She’s got this CD called Secret keepers, meant for mothers and daughters to listen to in the car and talk about.

On my own. Well, actually, with Elena, my daughter. We ran across it at the book store.

Not usually. But the other week was funny. When Isabelle, my youngest, was little, she’d listen to little kid CD’s in the car. But as she got older, all she wanted to do was listen to the music that the older kids liked. But just the other week, I came across some of those old CD’s and we were all listening to them in the car. All the kids were singing along and reminiscing. It was fun.

Sometimes books on tape.

Yeah. It’s hard to find something everyone will like because the kids are at those ages. But we’ve listened to Harry Potter and the Chronicles of Narnia. When my oldest visits with his grandparents, they listen to Louis Lamour.

We go camping with several other families. It spreads the work and makes it more fun. So then, we usually don’t have the family in the car, but some combination of some of the kids and their friends. Like the last camping trip, there were four 14-year olds—my son’s friends and him. They were all talking all at once—but listening to each other too. I don’t know how they did it. I was exhausted.

Eating, reading, sleeping. The kids might be listening to music.

The radio. They don’t listen to CD’s. And they don’t cut themselves off with Ipods when they’re in the car with friends. But when they go to Church camp, they have portable DVD players and Ipods. Cameron had a Game Boy, but he lost interest in that, partly because he lost the connector cable. But it was more. He just seemed to lose interest in playing. Been about a year, now that I think of it.

I remember my mom visiting her sister—leaving early for the four-hour drive. I’d be wrapped up in a blanket and I’d sleep most of the way. Later, she was always driving me around for sports.

I also remember the first can I had. High school. I took my friends places, drove to sports events. Not many of my friends had cars, so I was usually the one driving.

My dad’s old Honda. Thast’s what I passed my drivers test in. I took that with me to college. Then, in my junior year of college, my dad got me a used Honda Prelude. That was zippy. Then, when I got married and was pregnant, we got a Mazda mini-van. Ii drove that until we got the Suburban. I like big cars. I feel safer sitting up high, having four-wheel drive.

Ah, dream car! A pick up truck. A red supercab 250—I don’t need a 350—a 250 will be just fine for pulling a trailer. The Suburban’s not good at that. Yeah, I love looking at trucks, but I’ll probably be a grandmother before I get a pick-up. You know how much a pick-up like that costs? Forty-thousand dollars.

I notice them when we’re out driving. Dale and I also stop in at the Ford or GMC dealer when something catches my eye.

Maybe. First, I’d give money to the church. Then, I’d put some in savings. Then I’d put in a new lawn. Maybe then I’d buy the truck. You know, with the Suburban, I keep it clean and take care of it, but I don’t think about it much. I mean, it’s already been dinged and lived in. But a brand new car, I’m afraid I’d value it more than a car should be valued.

Well, a car isn’t a good investment. That new car smell never lasts long enough. And the depreciation--$40,000, imagine it in a savings account!

I’d like us to be not so dependent on oil. I’ve heard that they’re starting to use cooking oil or something like that to run cars. I don’t really understand how it works, but that would be nice. Especially—we’re experiencing a lot of growth in this area—so especially if my husband’s commute goes from like 30 minutes now to 50 minutes.

More safety features. Carseats, belts, airbags.

He’s a very responsible kid. I’m nervous, but this is part of the whole life weaning process. Driving is independence. He’ll be able to drive to sporting events, recreation events. It’ll be good for him to gain some responsibility paying for insurance, for gas.

Drive the Suburban? No. He doesn’t even like to get into it. He’s embarrassed; it’s old, and blue. We’ll find him a good, used, reliable car.

We’ll have to figure out our specific criteria. It’ll probably come from Consumer’s Reports and from my dad. He loves to research.

Yeah. When we bought the Suburban. My dad influenced us in getting a GMC. We saw this car in Henderson and my dad researched it and found out the year had had good reviews.

Let’s see. Tuesday and Wednesday nights we go into town, so that’s 40 minutes. Another day I might go in for groceries. Also 40 minutes. Sunday we go to church, might do errands or take a trip—say 80 minutes. I try to have at least two days a week that we don’t go into town.

When we go to my parents at Christmas, we’ll have Christmas gifts, six people, two dogs and provisions. At least we don’t have a stroller any more! Other times, we might have the kids bikes, sleeping bags, pillows.

Yes. My husband and I have one of those plans where we have two cell phones, same number. We’ll have to think about how to add on when Cameron starts to drive.

If it’s me driving, I’ll pull over. Like the other day, Dale was waiting at church and he called me so we could figure out the details for where we’d meet and when. Sometimes I’ll call Dale, if I’m out in town and ask: “Is there anything we need?” Or the other day, I was with my daughter and she called to find out what time Willy Wonka was playing.

Yeah. I put off getting a cell phone for a while after they got popular. But you know what convinced me? My sister-in-law’s husband died real suddenly. She said if it wasn’t for her cell phone, she wouldn’t have gotten to talk to him before he passed. That convinced me.

I don’t know. The hardest thing about a technology like that is figuring out: do you use it or get used by it? But it would be nice if we could call up Mapquest right in the car. Or research something we’re talking about. The other week, one of the kids asked me: “why do fingers wrinkle?” I had no idea. It would have been nice to have been able to look that up right then.

Well, technology—like the internet—lets people function without other people. It’s just one more step on that road of families moving away from each other, getting busy, having such hectic lives. Our trips wind up being less purposeful because we don’t have to plan and make do.

Car trips yes, certainly, like I said with my cell phone I can just call up Dale spur of the moment. But I also mean trips in the larger--what is the word--more ethereal—sense of our time here on earth. These days, there’s less and less planning, purposefulness required.

Interview 30 (zaslow)