Tropical Storm Ernesto had all but blown out of the Washington Area by the time we left Northern Virginia Saturday morning. But rain still pelted the windshield, and visibility was poor as we crossed the Wilson Bridge into Maryland in the dark just before 6 a.m.
I saw the car on its side as we rounded a bend. Two people stood on the shoulder, hugging each other. My three-year-old son chattered away in the back seat.
"Be quiet for a second," I told him as I dialed the three-digit number for the first time in my life.
"Prince Georges County 9-1-1."
"I want to report an overturned car on the outer loop of the beltway, just before exit 11-A," I said.
"We're on the way," the dispatcher replied.
Still, when I listed to WTOP's "Traffic and Weather Together on the Eights" about 10 minutes later the reporter said rescue crews had not yet arrived. I said a prayer and wondered if I should have stopped. But with two kids in the car, rain coming down in the dark and cars whizzing by at 80 miles per hour, stopping had not been option for me. I prayed that the people I'd seen were the only ones in the car.
The rain stopped and the clouds began to break up a little just as we crossed the Bay Bridge. My sons woke up shortly after that, and we stopped at a McDonald's on Rt. 50 for a bite to eat.
"How old are your boys?" a man asked me as I got my coffee.
"Three and five."
"I've got two just like that, same blond hair and everything. Only they're 38 and 40 now," he said.
The boys and I found a table, ate our hash browns, made wise cracks and laughed and laughed. I was pretty sure it was going to be a good weekend.
We'd chosen the final weekend of the Summer of 2006 to make a pilgrimage to Virginia's Eastern Shore and the home of an old friend of mine whom I'll refer to as the Old Coot. The Coot recently settled in Northampton County, a place so rural it's hard to believe it's part of the same state I live in. The boys and I had been wanting to visit him for awhile but never settled on a time that was convenient for both him and us. The Coot and I finally decided to just quit waiting for a convenient time and planned the visit.
My wife was still tired of traveling following the Outer Banks extravaganza and had some things she needed to do, so she sat out the Old Coot trip. I felt like it would be good for her to have a weekend to herself. I also had this nagging feeling that, despite all I'd done with my family during the summer, I still hadn't devoted enough top quality individual time to my boys. What better way for us to spend that time, I thought, than to take a five hour car ride into one of the Old Dominion's most remote areas and spend some time with the Old Coot?
I never really doubted that I could handle the boys on my own. That is, at least not until we pulled up in the Coot's driveway.
"I wanna go home!" my three-year-old screamed.
I heard that refrain hundreds of times over the next 30 or so hours. My little boy is shy and missed his mother. He was in unfamiliar surroundings and didn't handle it well.
That's not to say he had a horrible time. He was just hot and cold. One minute he was having fun, swimming in the Coot's pool, and the next minute he was begging me to take him to his mom.
My older son did great and, despite a couple of near misses with horrible accidents that I won't describe here, had a wonderful time. He showed the Old Coot how well he can swim. He shot the Coot's Red Ryder BB Gun. He whittled with a pocket knife. He hit baseballs in the side yard. He did a lot of things that kids growing up in the Northern Virginia Suburbs seldom get a chance to experience.
When I told him that we'd have to leave Sunday night because his little brother wanted to, he begged me to let him stay.
But I felt like I had no choice. I couldn't deal with another night with an unhappy three-year-old and planned to leave by 6:30 p.m. But then something happened around six.
I walked around a corner in the Coot's house and found my youngest son grinning from ear-to-ear. He'd finally gotten over it.
"I wanna stay here," he told me.
The roughly five-and-a-half hours between the time he came out of his shell and the time we went to bed were definitely the highlight of the trip. We played outside until just before dark and then went in and grazed on leftovers from the wonderful meals Mrs. Coot had prepared for us over the past couple days.
After dinner, the boys and I went for a walk in the moonlight. It is so unusual for them to hear what we heard that night. That is, no cars, no air conditioners, no planes, no sirens; just crickets and frogs. I loved giving them a chance to hear what my world sounded like at night when I was a little boy growing up on Aldie Mountain. Unfortunately, however, Eastern Shore mosquitoes are about as big as buzzards, and they drove us inside before long.
In the living room, Mrs. Coot helped the boys build a huge pile of pillows on the floor, and they took turns running and diving into it, while the Coot and I chatted. I felt like a massive weight had been lifted from my shoulders.
We finally did leave under clear skies the following morning and, except for one emergency bathroom stop, had an uneventful ride home. I called my wife, and she said she was at the Cowboy's house. As we crossed back over the Wilson Bridge, I prayed again for the victims in the accident I'd seen Saturday. As we pulled into the Cowboy's driveway, I thanked God for getting us home safe.
I also thanked him for giving me the strength to do something with my kids that not every dad would or could do. I thanked him for giving me the perseverance to make it to 6 p.m. Sunday when that smile on the face of my youngest son told me everything would be O.K.
So that's what I wrote after the first time the boys and I visited Birdsnest together. The next time we go, for his memorial service this weekend, my third son will be joining us as well as my wife. Here's what she wrote about my dad.
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