Life is A Highway (Toastmasters Speech given 11-8-2018)

This is where I ended up, and gave it as my first speech at Toastmasters - The "Icebreaker." I was the only speaker scheduled, so I asked for 8-10 minutes, but I even went over that, over 12 min the end. It was well received and I did a pretty good job presenting. I lost my place in the notes once and repeated a sentence, but the "Ah Counter/Grammarian" only noted that and two "filler" words. 

Rachael helped me edit and I followed a lot of her recommendations. I had considered leaving out the details about the car accident  and just jumping from "ten minutes later we are rolling and flipping down an embankment of an overpass," to "nobody dies," but Rachael said the accident details were really interesting. She also said now she understands why I have ptsd!

I did a small introduction saying that I thought of many ways to tell about myself, like the houses I lived in or the schools I attended, but settled on "Cars I have known..."

LIFE IS A HIGHWAY

I am three years old, crouching on the floor of the back seat of the red 1969 Chevy Impala, surrounded by red vinyl seats and holding on to Velvet Ear. She is as nervous as I am. We are moving from West Lafayette and the only home I remember to a new home in Richmond. Daddy is a restaurant manager at Frisch's.

In Richmond we have a better house. It has a long slanting driveway. I push my Radio Flyer down the driveway and it goes too fast... I fall and scrape my knees. I walk up the driveway, past Mom's new cream-colored station wagon and she cleans my wounds and sprays them with Bactine, and covers them with Band-Aids. When Mom runs errands we wait in the station wagon. My older brother Chris and I like to pretend to drive while we wait, but he hardly lets me have a turn. My favorite errand is the bank because Mom always brings suckers when she comes back.

We get a brown Mercury car. It has cool American Flag stickers on the back windows. When we drive to visit Uncle Dick at the Air Force Base I feel like we belong there because we have flag stickers! I love visiting Uncle Dick because my cousin Patty is the girl cousin closest to me in age. She is about five years older than I am and she tells me all. the. things. that nobody else tells me about being a girl, liking boys, and kissing.

I am six, my oldest brother Bobby leaves to go to Alaska and Canada on his mission. I miss him the most, but I know that he really wants to go spread the Gospel. We move to a new house while he is gone and I am scared that he won't be able to find us when he comes back! Finally I tell Dad my fears and he reassures me that we will go pick Bobby up at the airport when he comes home. We drive in the new blue Mercury from Richmond to the Dayton, Ohio airport to pick him up. It is night and as soon as I see Bobby coming in the door I run and jump into his arms. We are driving on Highway 70, back to Richmond to show Bobby the new house. Suddenly there are bright lights and sirens! Daddy pulls over and a state policeman comes to the window with his hand on his gun! I am sitting on Bobby's lap in the back seat. The policeman looks in the window and sees me and Chris and Bobby all piled in the back seat. He asks Dad his name and asks who we are. Dad explains that we just picked Bobby up as he returned from his Mormon mission. The police man laughs and said there was just an armed robbery and the getaway car is just like ours!

Dad gets fired from Frisch's. He has a fight with his boss, who daddy calls "the son of a bitch!" Mom is crying in the kitchen while she stands next to the ironing board. I cry too. Dad gets a job in a new restaurant, but it is in Terre Haute.  We load up the blue Mercury and move to Terre Haute. We move with only what will fit in the car into a trailer that already has beds, a couch, and a dining room table with chairs upholstered in avocado green vinyl.

After just a few months in Terre Haute I come home from school and Grandpa Pechin is there with his brown van. I am told to put my stuff in bags to take it out to the van. Chris and I ride with Grandpa in the van and he doesn't say much, just seems really mad, and tells me that Dad doesn't work at Big Wheel anymore. I take my bags inside into the little house on Sequoya Street in Lafayette and Grandma has a nice dinner ready. Mom comes a couple of days later with a little bright yellow, two-doore Chevette. Chris and I load our bags into the little yellow Chevette and Mom drives us to Country Charm apartments.

Baby Heather arrives and along with her comes a new Chevette - brown this time and with four doors instead of just two. This makes it easier for Mom and Dad to use the car seat for the baby.

The little brown Chevette is traded for a red Chevy Malibu - Heather's car seat fits better AND we don't have to share with Chris anymore since he graduated from high school and joined the army. When I am sixteen Mom drives me to downtown Lafayette and I get a learner's permit. Mom lets me drive the car home and I feel like I can drive the minute I get behind the wheel.

One day I let my younger friend take the red Malibu for a spin. I figure it must be the world's easiest car to drive because I could do it right away. Angie swerves off the road and the left front tire climbs the guide wire to a utility pole and gently tips the car over on its right side. We crawl out of the car and have to go to a farmhouse and ask for them to call a wrecker to come get the car. Mom and Dad aren't very happy. I don't get to keep the car during the day very often after that. My wheels become my red ten speed bike. I want to swim on the high school swim team. Practice starts in the summer so I ride my red ten speed to school, run, lift and swim, then ride back home. I develop lean, muscular legs and enjoy swimming, practice, and competition.

Most of high school I am transported in others' cars. Kim’s older Chevy Nova, Susan’s giant Buick Electra Glide, and Lu’s little orange Chevette that we call "the pumpkin car."

Right before high school graduation time I am in a play - Funny Girl. The night after dress rehearsal my friend Lisa and I get a ride home from Matt, her boyfriend. John and Randy also need a ride, and things are confusing when we are getting in. The car is really small, a Dodge Omni. My hands are full and I can't fasten my seat belt.... About ten minutes later we are flipping and rolling down the embankment of an overpass.  We land next to highway 65 with the car upside down. After we land I look back behind me and see Lisa lying still with her eyes closed.  I think to myself that if she is dead there is nothing I can do. I climb out of the car, even though I don't really know how I am getting out.  I scream at Matt to turn off the engine. I keep seeing movie clips in my head showing a car going over a cliff and exploding, and I think if Matt turns it off that won't happen.  When I wipe the blood out of my eyes, I realize that we are next to the highway. I run out by the road waving my arms... I slip in a little drainage ditch that runs along the highway and my ankle hurts, but I wave down a semi and he calls in an emergency on his CB radio. I walk back over by the car and Matt is screaming, “I can’t find Randy.”  I wipe my eyes again and see Randy up near the top of the hill, bloody, and lying still on the ground. I climb up and sit by him until the police arrive. There are ambulances down on the highway. One leaves and then another, then Matt and an ambulance guy help me to the third, as now I realize I've injured my ankle. Nobody dies. Up to that point in my life never been so happy to hear anybody cry as I was when I first hear Lisa's voice. We are all able to attend graduation a couple weeks later. Lisa is in a wheelchair and Randy is on crutches, but Jon is able to give his valedictorian speech despite having just spent time in Intensive care.

After graduation I stay home and take care of Heather and another little girl. I keep the Malibu and drive the kindergarten carpool while mom and Dad carpool to their factory jobs in the little blue 1968 Austin America that Dad buys super cheap. Every day I watch the two little girls, then go out and apply for jobs while they are in school. At night I drive over to the Purdue campus where Susan, Lu, and Kim are going to college. Lu and I walk all over campus every night. If she needs to study I read or write in my journal.

Dad paints the little Austin bright silver using cans of spray paint. I start classes at Purdue and drive the little tin can car to campus and on some college adventures. I still live with Mom and Dad and Heather until a night when that just doesn’t work anymore. I stay up all night and pack my clothes, records, and books into milk crates stolen from Dairy Queen. In the morning a friend comes and picks me Drives me over to Purdue student apartments. Soon I am settled in my own apartment with new roommates Kim and Diane. My wheels are the city bus, which I take from campus to my job at Kmart.

The next summer I keep living with Kim. Her parents buy a red K Car for her, a nice Reliant automobile, and we drive to Indianapolis with a car full of folks and go to White Castle and walk around Monument Circle at night laughing with all our friends. In the red car Kim and I follow the ambulance to St. Elizabeth hospital to wait for our other roommate’s parents after her suicide attempt. Feeling overwhelmed that summer in West Lafayette, I borrow my parent’s new 1985 Blue Chevy Cavalier and drive to Bloomington. I find the Indiana University admissions office and fill out an application. I drive to the Kmart out by the mall and secure a job. I find a Herald-Telephone and find a room in a boarding house for the fall semester.

I return the Cavalier, tell Dad that I am moving to Bloomington, and a few days later he buys a little red Audi Fox for me. In a couple of weeks I pack up my milk crates again and drive to Bloomington.  I take a job as a live-in nanny and run the kids to Bloomington Montessori School in my little Fox. I attend classes in afternoons and work at Kmart in the evenings and weekends. I am busy, but happy. Then, the Audi meets its end at the corner of 10^th Street and Park as I take a friend home one Saturday night.

Dad steps in again and replaces the Audi with a $500 1977 Toyota Tercel. I steer the silver Toyota right into marriage. The husband is abusive… to the little silver car, and never checks the oil despite my warnings. The little engine is too thirsty to continue to run, so together we purchase a 1983 Ford Tempo, beige, boring, and totally reliable. It lasts longer than the marriage. Deanna comes one morning in her Oldmosbile Ciera and takes me, my two children, and a couple of laundry baskets of clothes to Middle Way House. The three of us are on our own and carless. Friends help transport Emily to kindergarten in a fleet of caring cars and the children and I continue life on our own. Another caring car comes in the form of a little red Honda I borrow until I inherit Grandpa’s 1978 blue Mercury Monarch. The big old takes the children to daycare and school and it’s not that big of a bother really, to get out at a stoplight now and then and stick a screwdriver in the flutter valve of the choke to keep it from dying!

My first job since the divorce is in a bank and my boss helps me secure a loan for a little white 1988 Nissan Sentra. I drive it a hundred thousand miles or so, moving to a house, often taking the children to visit their father, going to Lafayette to visit grandparents, and making my little sixty-nine dollar car payments until it is mine, all mine! The end of 1998 begins my career in newspaper advertising and the Sentra morphs into my only car bought new, in the form of a 1999 Ford Escort. The Escort does its time, logging over two hundred thousand miles taking Emily to college at Purdue, toting Brittany and her cello to lesson after lesson, serving faithfully until the invention of cell phones and texting lands a Jeep with a distracted driver into its rear end in 2013.

After the faithful service of that cheap Ford I look for another and now life is a party on the highway. I’m on my own and the space of my little Ford Fiesta is perfect. The good mileage gets me affordably to Illinois to visit Emily and her family which includes two grandchildren. Brittany travels light, so there is enough space for her things when I pick her up at the airport on her trips home first from Boston and now Richmond, Virginia. The little Fiesta takes me on my new adventures, including selling the house in 2017 and moving to a tiny apartment. Sometimes I leave it home and walk to work and it sits ready and waiting for the next adventure.

This is where I began with this document. It had way too many details for what was supposed to be a 4-6 minute speech.

I am three years old, crouched on the floor of the back seat of the red 1969 Chevy Impala, surrounded by red vinyl seats and holding on to Velvet Ear. She is as nervous as I am. We are moving from West Lafayette to a new home in Richmond. Daddy is a restaurant manager at Frisch's. I love going to visit him and eating crinkle-cut french fries dipped in Heinz catsup. I love being at the "store." My favorite thing is sitting in the car and carhops come and bring me my fries. I also like being inside in the back and watching when the hostess Edna combines two bottles of catsup by standing one on top of the other so the top one drips down into the bottom.

In Richmond I realize that Dad is still working at Frisch's and we have a better house. It has a long slanting driveway. I push my Radio Flyer down the driveway and it goes too fast... I fall and scrape my knees so badly. I have to walk up the driveway, past Mom's new cream-colored station wagon to have my wounds cleaned, sprayed with Bactine, and covered2 with Band-Aids. When Mom runs errands we get to wait in the car. My older brother Chris and I both like to pretend to drive while we wait, but he always does it the most and hardly lets me have a turn. My favorite errand is the bank because Mom always brings suckers when she comes back.

Later we get a brown Mercury car. It had cool American Flag stickers on the back windows. When we drive to visit Uncle Dick at the Air Force Base I feel like we belong there because we have flag stickers! I love visiting Uncle Dick because my cousin Patty is the girl cousin closest to me in age. She is about five years older than I am and she tells me all. the. things. that nobody else tells me about being a girl, liking boys, and kissing.

My oldest brother Bobby is a lot older than I am. He is a teenager and he taught me to read by reading to me every night out of the Book of Mormon and also the Young Folks Library. My favorite is when he reads from the The Book of Adventure about Sinbad the Sailor, who had to defend his ship and crew from a roc, a giant predator bird. I also go to Bobby's singing lessons with him and color while I hear his clear tenor in the teacher's studio. When I am six, he leaves to go to Alaska and Canada on his mission. I miss him the most, but I know that he really wants to go spread the Gospel. We move to a new house while he is gone and I am so scared that he won't be able to find us when he comes back! Finally I tell Dad my fears and he reassures me that we will go pick Bobby up at the airport when he comes home. We drive in the new blue Mercury from Richmond to the Dayton, Ohio airport to pick him up. It is night and as soon as I see Bobby coming in the door I run and jump in his arms. We are driving on Highway 70, back to Richmond to show Bobby the new house. Suddenly there are bright lights and sirens! Daddy pulls over and a state policeman comes to the window with his hand on his gun! I am sitting on Bobby's lap in the back seat. The policeman looks in the window and sees me and Chris and Bobby all piled in the back seat. He asks Dad his name and asks who we are. Dad explains that we just picked Bobby up as he returned from his Mormon mission. The police man laughs and said there was just an armed robbery and the getaway car is just like ours!

Dad got fired from Frisch's. He had a fight with his boss, who daddy calls "the son of a bitch!" Mom is crying in the kitchen while she stands next to the ironing board. I cry too, just because. Dad gets a job in a new restaurant, but it is in Terre Haute. I've never heard of that place, but Dad says it is on the Wabash River, just like Lafayette and that we will get to go fishing all the time without having to drive so far to go visit Grandma and Grandpa first. For a long time Mom, Chris, Bobby and I stay in Richmond while Dad goes to Terre Haute to work. I know he stays in a Days Inn that is close to the Big Wheel Restaurant that he manages. We go visit and Chris and I sleep on the floor of the Days Inn. We visit the Big Wheel, but I don't like the food as much as Frisch's and Edna doesn't work there too and there is no drive-in service with carhops. When we visit Dad still has to work and we don't go fishing at all. Eventually we load up the blue Mercury as much as we can and move to Terre Haute. We don't take our furniture. We move with only what will fit in the car and we move into a trailer that already has beds and a couch and a dining room table with chairs that are upholstered in avocado green vinyl. The trailer isn't even really in Terre Haute. It is across the river in a little twin town called West Terre Haute. Mom says it is cheaper to live there and she wants to be with Dad so we are moving even though they haven't been able to sell the house in Richmond. So we Mom, Chris, and I move and Bobby and his new wife Karen move into the house. At least somebody lives next door to Tincey and Lindy. They are the best friends that I've ever had and I miss them terribly.

It turns out that I love West Terre Haute! Dad works all the time. It seems like he is never home. Even though we are right next to the Wabash we never go fishing. I go down by the river anyway and have a bunch of friends and we do all kinds of fun things, like riding our bikes with no hands down the river bank and then stopping right before we would have plunged into the water if we hadn't stopped. I start a school newspaper at West Vigo elementary school. My friend Julie loves cheerleading, so I act like I do too and we have fun cheering for the boys while they play touch football. I go to church with Julie and her sister Toni on Sunday at the little white church on the corner and the preacher shakes our hands and gives us dimes after the service. We go to the corner store and buy penny candy with our dimes every week. There is a motorcyle shop and they let us borrow little scooters and ride around town on them. My birthday passes and I have the first birthday party that I've ever had. I tell mom that I AM bringing people home after school for my birthday and to my surprise she has cleaned the usually messy house and made a birthday cake. I discover a radio in my little furnished room and start listening to music as I hide from the chaos of the rest of the house. One of These Nights by the Eagles is my favorite song.

One day I come home from school and there is a U-Haul truck in front of the trailer. Grandpa Pechin is there and I am told to put my stuff in bags to take it out to the truck. There are boxes for some of the clothes and kitchen stuff, but the furniture has to stay in that trailer. Chris and I ride with Grandpa in the truck and he doesn't say much, just seems really mad, and tells me that Dad doesn't work at Big Wheel anymore. Grandpa drives to the little house that he and Grandma have on Sequoya Street. I take my own stuff inside and Grandma has a nice dinner ready for me and Chris. Mom comes in a couple of days with a new car. It is bright yellow and about the same size as Grandpa Pechin's red VW Beetle. Mom says it is a Chevette. Chris and I load our bags of stuff into the little yellow Chevette and Mom drives us to Country Charm apartments. We have an upstairs apartment with a little balcony. I start at a new school. Durgan seems strange and is really old-fashioned. The library is a little house, separate from the rest of the school. It becomes my haven and I read all that I can. I discover the Bobbsey Twins and read late into the night, locked in my room. Dad has a job at a factory and leaves early in the morning before I wake up. Mom eventually gets a factory job too, and Chris and I get up and get ready for school on our own. If we are too late and miss the bus we just stay home because there is nobody to drive us. I finish fifth grade, sixth grade, and start Junior High School in the same building that was the high school Mom and Dad went to, and Bobby too, when they still loved in Lafayette!

There is a big snowstorm, really big! There is no school for several days. The buses can't get through the snow and there is so much snow that the plows don't have any place to put it if they clean the streets. Chris and I play outside all the time and eventually we walk over to the mall parking lot. There are mountains of snow and we climb to the top and slide down over and over again. We build a snow fort in the courtyard of the apartments and stay inside it as much as we can. Finally the roads are cleared and Dad shovels out the little yellow Chevette and starts going to work again.

Evenings after Mom and Dad are home from work we start driving the little Chevette around and looking for House For Sale signs. One night instead of just driving around Dad steers the little yellow car into a Mobile Home sales lot. Mom and Dad talk to a salesman and Chris and I go in and out of different trailers looking at all the different features, pretending that we live in them or playing hide and seek. Mom and Dad catch up with us in one that has orange carpet and mirrors on the living room walls. Dad says we will get one like this and asks us which bedroom we want. We will each get our own room with a little half bathroom in between them. That spring we learn that we are going to have a new sibling who will come in the fall.... I am afraid I will have to share my room if it is a girl, but Mom says I won't have to.

Our mobile home is finally finished being built and is pulled to a trailer park and installed on the other side of the river. Now we live in West Lafayette, just like we lived in West Terre Haute, on the west side of the Wabash! I have to switch to a new school. Klondike Junior High is just down the road. We still ride the bus to school, but if we miss the bus the school is close enough to walk to, even though I am late. I make a friend in the trailer park - excuse me, Woodland Terrace Mobile Home Estates. There is a swimming pool and a clubhouse with a couple of pinball machines and a pop machine.

Baby Heather arrives and along with her comes a new Chevette - brown this time and with four doors instead of just two. This makes it easier for Mom and Dad to use the car seat for the baby. After a couple of years Chris gets old enough to get a learner's permit and learns to drive in the brown Chevette. After Mom and Dad go to bed at night he takes the car and goes out driving with his friends...One night he hits a deer on the country road the the little brown Chevette has a wrecked front end. Oops. He is caught for his teenage joyrides and has to wait an extra long time to get his driver's license.

Eventually the little brown Chevette is traded for a red Chevy Malibu, It is bigger and much more comfortable. Heather's car seat fits better AND we don't have to share with Chris anymore. He graduated from high school and joined the army. When I am sixteen Mom drives me to downtown Lafayette and I get a learner's permit. When we get back to the new trailer park - excuse me, I mean Woods Edge Mobile Home Estates - Mom lets me drive the car back to our lot and I feel like I can drive the minute I get behind the wheel. Once I learn how touchy the gas pedal and the brakes are Mom and Dad let me drive most of the time when we all go somewhere together. I have just a permit for a long time and don't go take the test to get a license. Finally I have my one actual driving lesson. Dad takes me to downtown Lafayette and teaches me to parallel park. It just takes a couple of tries and I can do it well. When I finally go take the test for getting my license I almost don't pass because the license branch is on a one way street and requires parallel parking on the left side which I've never done. The examiner lets me try twice then says we've run out of time and I'll have to reschedule for another test. I convince her to let me try one more time and do it in two swift moves! "Well, okay," she says, "but it was rough!"

I have my own teenage adventure in the red Malibu. Though I seldom drive it one day I let my younger friend give it a whirl. I figure it must be the world's easiest car to drive because I could do it right away. Angie swerves off the road and the left front tire climbs the guide wire to a utility pole and gently tips the car over on its right side. We crawl out of the car and have to go to a farmhouse and ask for them to call a wrecker to come get the car. Mom and Dad aren't very happy. I don't get to keep the car during the day very often after that. My wheels become my red ten speed bike. I want to swim on the high school swim team. Practice starts in the summer so I ride my red ten speed to school, run, lift and swim, then ride back home. I develop lean, muscular legs and enjoy swimming, practice, and competition.

Most of high school I am transported in others' cars. My friend Kim gets an older car and is the frequent driver for our group of friends. We go to a lot of basketball games and have slumber parties at each others' houses. Susan gets a giant Buick Electra Glide. She drives only if Kim can't - Susan doesn't take navigation well, confuses directions and is inclined to stop at green lights. Intrestingly, Lu purchases a little orange Chevette that we call "the pumpkin car," but she doesn't get her driver's license until after graduation so until college she can only drive when her dad is with  her.

Right before high school graduation time I am in a play  - Funny Girl. The night after dress rehearsal my friend Lisa and I get a ride home from Matt, her boyfriend. Things are confusing when we are getting in. Jon and Randy are also there. The car is really small, a Dodge Omni. There is a tradition to wear play costumes to school on opening night so we h as very our usual school books and homework and assorted costumes, including a wedding dress. We end up with Lisa, Randy and Jon in the back with the back seat down flat, so we can spread the costumes and dress out on top of them. Even though Lisa would normally ride in front with Matt I am too shy to lie down in the back with the boys. When i sit down in the front passenger seat Matt hands me a big pile of all the school books. My hands are full and I can't fasten my seat belt.... About ten minutes later we are flipping and rolling down the embankment of a overpass.  We land next to highway 65 with the car upside down. After we land I look back behind me and see Lisa lying still with her eyes closed.  I think to myself that if she is dead there is nothing I can do. I climb out of the car, even though I don't really know how I am getting out.  I scream at Matt to turn off the engine. I keep seeing movie clips in my head that when I car goes over a cliff it explodes and I think if Matt turns it off that won't happen.  When zi wipe the blood out of my eyes i realize that we are next to the highway. I run out by the road waving my arms... I slip in a little drainage ditch that runs along the highway and my ankle hurts. but I wave down a semi and he calls in an emergency on his CB radio. I walk back over by the car and Matt is screaming, I cant find Randy.  I wipe my eye again and see Randy up near the top of the hill,bloody, and  lying still on the ground. I climb up and sit by him until the police arrive. There are ambulances down on the highway. One leaves and then another. then Matt and an ambulance guy help me to the third, as now I realize I've injured my ankle. Ending is nobody died. Up to that point in my life never been so happy to hear anybody cry as I was when I first heard Lisa's voice. We are all able to attend graduation a couple weeks later. Lisa is in a wheelchair and Randy is on crutches, but Jon is even  able to give his valedictorian speech despite haven't spent time in Intensive care not very long ago.

After graduation Mom and Dad have the mobile home towed to another trailer park - excuse me, I mean Highway 52 Mobile Home Estates. Heather is five and ready to start kindergarten.  I stay home and take care of her and another little girl. I keep the Malibu and drive the kindergarten carpool while mom and Dad carpool to their factory jobs in the little blue 1968 Austin America that Dad bought super cheap. Everyday I watch the two little girls and then at night I drive over to the Purdue campus where Susan, Lu, and Kim are going to college. Lu and I walk all over campus every night. If she needs to study I read or write in my journal. After a couple of months like this I start going out while the little girls are in school and I apply for jobs. at