We hadn’t even backed out of the driveway and we were only going eight minutes to the general store for a bag of milk. This had to stop.
I could hardly blame them, the seven-inch LCD screen hung there from the ceiling. It was like taking a date to a sports bar and trying not to watch the game. Besides, it was far too easy to stop the whining by just pressing play.
For our family, this habit started innocently enough. We live a five-hour drive from both sets of grandparents. That’s a long way to be strapped into car seats. For long trips, Disney is a good way to pass the time. But, like most bad habits, you think you can stop whenever you want until you realize you’re pressing play on a drive to the corner store.
My problem with in-car entertainment systems is that pressing play turns me into a chauffeur. I may as well be rolling up the plexiglass of a limo: “I’ll drive. You kids enjoy the movie; help yourselves to the mini-bar.” This is not the way it’s supposed to be.
When I was a kid, getting to ride with my dad on saturday mornings was a special treat. I looked forward to it all week. The Silverado emblem on the red steel dash, the rumble of the diesel engine and the smell of Export A zregular smoke that didn’t escape out the triangular, no-draft window he’d crack for me. It was 1979 and I was eight years old, legs dangling from the bench seat and the Gatlin Brothers’ All the Gold in California crackling out of the AC Delco speakers. I don’t remember where we were going or what we did. It didn’t matter; those Saturday mornings I was riding with Dad.
My new DVD player rule—no movies on adventure days—came about last fall on a drive to Algonquin Park. We’d planned a hike, playing naked (them, not me) on remote beaches and then a bike ride for ice cream. It was the Daddy Day that we’d been looking forward to all week. and it began with, “Can we watch a movie?”
If all I can remember of the trips with my dad is the drive, this is likely to be true for my kids. I don’t want their memories of our Saturday adventures with me to be Finding Nemo piped through wireless headphones.
To make things easier, my new truck doesn’t have an on-board entertainment system. We play eye spy, tell stories, talk, sleep (them, not me) and watch the 3-D super-wide screen—looking out the windows. And, we listen to music.
To our adventures with Dad ipod playlist I’ve added All the Gold in California, but their favorite is Joan Jett’s, I Love Rock N’ Roll.
Now when we head to the ski hill or the lake, before we back out of the driveway I hear, “Dad, can we rock it out?”
Even if they don’t remember our canoe trips in the Barron Canyon, and all they remember is singing with their dad, I’m okay with that.
This article first appeared in the Early Summer 2011 issue of Canoeroots Magazine.
