"shotgun" the front seat...

The other day I had the rare privilege of giving two of my boys a lift.  On the way to the car, the one shouted "Shotgun" and then the other tried to race him to the passenger side of the car and touch the door first.

It made me smile.

The "Shotgun" comment got me thinking about some of the car trip games that we used to play.  My favourite was "R5 to the boy who could keep quiet the longest".  Matthew always won that one.  Then the "Suck the Sparkles" sweet game where you had to see who could make the sweet last the longest. Matthew had the knack of holding it between his teeth and not getting it wet, Nic could not and still cannot not crunch a peppermint or hard sweet and Gareth enjoyed the sweet too much to try and make it last for too long.  Matthew won that one as well.  We also had the "See who could hold their breath until we were over the bridge game".  This the boys invented just in case we crashed and ended up in the river.  It is weird that I still hold my breath when on a roadtrip and crossing a bridge (I don't tell anybody what I am doing though).

Then I thought about when I took the boys to prep school in my Opel Kadett station wagon.  Things were different back then and the authorities today would put me straight into jail (if they could catch me).  I lifted 5 boys to school every morning.  I used to take the route along the railway line in Rondebosch and drop them off at school in Rouwkoop Road.  They all used to fight to pile into the back of the station wagon and the game was for me to go over the speed bumps at speed to see whose head or satchel could touch the roof of the car.  No one used to "Shotgun" then.  They all wanted to be in the back.  It sounds horrific now and rather negligent (I have seriously thought about deleting this paragraph) but it was fun at the time although it gives me shivers now.  I was always in trouble with our mechanic about how quickly the "shocks" on the car wore down!!  That old white Kadett station wagon was better than any 4X4.

Not quite as old as this one but the dark haired boy

looks just like Bradley from our old lift club

Cute hey?  But not quite

That's the one!!

We once went camping in Citrusdal in the middle of winter.  The tent pegs were left behind and we had no choice but to open the back door of the station wagon, put all the seats down flat and throw the tent over the car.  5 of us slept like that for 2 nights right next door to some serious campers who had a 2 bedroomed tent, with windows and even one of those washing up racks and a washing line.