drive

It was almost exactly three hundred miles from grandad's house to the cabin. Driving up there could take anywhere from five to eight hours, depending on traffic, weather and the inclination of the driver. For many of the years I went up to the cabin with grandad, he had an AMC Eagle station wagon. It had four wheel drive which could be turned on and off. That four wheel drive turned out to be essential at times, especially on snow covered logging roads. One of the times I went up during deer season, I had just gotten my learner's permit and was always itching for a chance to drive.
I had a few chances to drive once we got past Milwaukee, and I thought I was doing pretty well. Grandad drove again for a while again, then we stopped for gas. I had asked him if I could drive again after we got gas, and he had said yes. I started to regret my request a little bit when it started snowing heavily. I told him I had never driven in snow before, and asked if he thought it was okay. He said we could turn the four wheel drive on, drive slowly, and it would be fine. He turned the four wheel drive on, which involved pressing a button or something, then driving slowly forward, then doing something else, and driving slowly backward, or something like that. We switched seats, and I pulled out of the gas station parking lot into my first snow storm driving experience.
I was pretty tense, and I was constantly adjusting my speed, and turning the windshield wipers from fast to slow and back, depending on the amount of snow. The road was getting covered with snow, and as we drove north, the snow seemed to be coming down faster and thicker. It had gotten dark, so I was frequently switching the headlights from low beam to high, for oncoming traffic, and also because sometimes when the snow was falling heavily, the high beams would reflect back and make it more difficult to see.
We were getting closer to the cabin, so more and more, I was driving on smaller roads which hadn't been plowed, and had little if any traffic. At one point, we were on a road which no one had driven on since it had started snowing. Fortunately, the road was straight for miles, but I could barely tell where it was. There was about twenty yards of flat white field on either side of the road, then trees. I tried to stay in the middle of the road based on the slight slope down on either side, and little poles with reflective markers which were on the side of the road every few hundred yards. Sometimes it would look as if I was driving straight toward the poles, so I might have been driving off the edge of the road surface.
For an inexperienced driver, it was nerve wracking to try to keep adjusting the headlights, the windshield wipers and the speed, all while trying to guess where the road was. It was only later when I would drive in similar conditions with a non-four wheel drive car that I came to realize how good it was to have the four wheel drive. Instead of sliding all over the road, or off the road, as happened during a later snowstorm in my own car, the Eagle barely slid at all. When we finally got to the cabin, I suddenly became aware of how physically drained I was. My hands, shoulders and neck were tired and sore from gripping the steering wheel and craning forward to try to get a better view out the snow covered windshield. I was wiped out, but I was glad that we made it, and a little bit proud that grandad had trusted me enough to drive with all that snow.
Another time while driving up to the cabin, we stopped at a little cheese shop in some small town. I was trying to rearrange some things in the back of the car so I could recline my seat some more, so I didn't go in. After a few minutes, grandad came out with a little package and said, "I got a nice cheddar that just had its fourth birthday."
We weren't five miles away from there before grandad suggested we try out that cheese. I undid my seat belt and had to half crawl to the back of the car to find the crackers we had packed in a box of food supplies and a knife. I think about half of that four year old cheddar was gone before we ever got to the cabin.
When grandad was driving on the highway, sometimes he would have one hand on the steering wheel, and the other arm would be against his side, sort of resting on his belly, with the free hand sort of hanging in the air. It always made me think of a gesture some people make when they're about to explain something, or start talking about something, so he perpetually looked like he was about to say something. On a long stretch of highway, he might remain in exactly the same position for half an hour without moving, except for slight steering wheel adjustments. Sometimes I'd look over at him and it would look like he might have fallen asleep, except for the fact that he kept the car in the lane, and would occasionally clear his throat, which made it seem even more like he was about to say something.
Once, while he had his right hand on the steering wheel, and his left hand was hanging in the air partially upturned in faux gesture, he had a little coughing fit. With the last big cough, a little white glob of phlegm flew out of his mouth and landed on top of his right hand. For some reason, I didn't say anything about it. I thought maybe he would notice eventually, but if he did, he didn't do anything about it. It seemed like an inconsequential thing, but it also seemed pretty disgusting. I thought maybe he would eventually wipe his hand on his jacket or something, but then I thought maybe he would reach over to the glove box to get a map or something, and accidentally wipe it on me. I kept my eye on his hand, ready to take evasive action if necessary.
We started talking about something, and I kind of forgot about the phlegm. He asked me for the bag of pretzels we had been eating earlier, which was on the passenger side floor. As I reached for the bag, I suddenly remembered the glob of phlegm on his hand. At the same time, he was shifting around in his seat and had switched hands, so the left hand was now on the steering wheel, and the right hand was floating in the air, waiting for the bag of pretzels to appear. I looked at his hand, and the phlegm was gone. I wondered if it had dried and flaked off, or if he had brushed it off against something after I had forgotten about it. I looked around and didn't see anything, but I got this feeling that everything around me might be contaminated. At any rate, as I handed him the pretzels, I decided that I wouldn't have any more of that particular bag of pretzels.