Rules of the Road

I've been thinking about how much things have changed since I was just a kid. Anymore, kids have to be buckled up when they ride in a vehicle, as well as the adults. There's nothing wrong with that, don't get me wrong, but I can remember as a kid jumping into the back of the pick-up and heading down the road. It was fun to ride in the back. Don't get me wrong. I know why it is that the laws are becoming more strict, to save lives.

One time Jackie, Dinah and I were riding in the back of Grandpa John's pick-up heading down the road toward his house. We always had fun trying to fool him into thinking someone had fallen out. Well, on this particular day, Jackie stood up at the back of the pick-up by the tailgate. She tumbled over the tail-gate (she was facing front) and hit the ground pretty hard. Dinah and I both hollered at Grandpa to tell him that she had fallen out. Talk about the old story about crying wolf, that's exactly what happened. Grandpa ignored us. When we got down the road quite a ways, he saw Jackie running after us. It didn't help that when Dinah and I saw that Jackie was okay, we laughed and giggled while trying to tell Grandpa she had fallen out.

I hope Jackie wears her seat belt now. I think there were a couple of other times that she managed to fall out of a car.