Eileen Cichello

Suburbans. I loved them! I felt like the queen of the road when I was driving them. (Actually, if I was alone in the car, I'd whip along bellowing "King of the Road.") We got our first suburban, used , of course, when our oldest, Mary, was a senior in high school. It was a beauty, bright red, the apple of my eye. Mary transported the field hockey and track crew around in it to sundry non- school event

I went out in the driveway one morning to find a big long gash in its side. Nobody knew how it got there. I whimpered and moaned.

Mary went off to college and Teresa became a major source of transportation in Weedsport. Then, Teresa was off to college and Claire became the driver. Her most memorable moment with that suburban was when she gouged my friend’s brand new car in our driveway , on her way to school. Not a good day.

One night , when Mary was home on a break, we got one of those calls parents dread. There'd been an accident, everyone was okay. The car wasn't. A guy had run a red light and rammed our suburban. The insurance man declared it a total loss. The only thing I cared about at the time was that Mary and her friends were all right.

The red suburban now sat in our driveway, crumpled up, a sorry sight. At a car auction, we bought a green suburban, a thing of beauty, newer than our usual purchases. Claire, a freshman at college, came home on the bus with a friend, to celebrate her eighteenth birthday. She got our permission to take the green suburban and go out, with all the usual admonitions that parents give in these circumstances. About five minutes after she left the house, the siren blew. Almost immediately after, the phone rang. There'd been an accident on South Street. The girls seemed to be okay but we'd better get there right away.

That was the most terrifying scene I'd ever seen involving anyone in my family. The suburban lay on its roof, on the side of the road. Red lights from fire trucks and ambulance lent an eerie glow. I thought, "There's no way they weren't badly hurt." Claire had some blood on her face and a lump. Her friend had a possible concussion. We followed the ambulance to the hospital and thankfully, they were both all right. We just had to keep waking Claire's friend up at intervals all night, to make sure she was conscious. And, of course, notify her parents!

For months after that, every time the fire alarm went off, I'd get cold chills and do a mental rundown of where each of our children were at the time. I'm not superstitious but, much as I loved suburbans, I refused to have another one in the family.

To be continued....

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