I had very clear memories from my childhood of riding in a car which Papa was driving. (The experience of careening down a one-way, one-lane street at 90 miles an hour on a Sunday morning in a densely populated area just isn't easy to forget.) I could also remember my parents talking about an insurance company dropping Papa and Eva's policy because of frequent accidents.  Not surprisingly, in adulthood, I was wary of getting into a vehicle which either of them was going to drive. Unfortunately, when I visited Papa and Eva, car rides were often impossible to avoid, because they wanted me to see the sites in the area and spend time getting to enjoy their friends, and they always insisted on doing the driving. I was glad, at least at first, to discover that Papa was no longer the speed demon I remembered from my early years.
  
         One Sunday returning to Laurel after a day at the Smithsonian,  I was enjoying Papa's keeping reasonable pace with the other traffic on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway.

         "Now, I want to show you something about this next exit," he told me.

        "O.K." I noticed that he was slowing a little.

         "This is a government site, but there's restricted access," he explained, slowing further.

         "That drives your Poppa crazy," Eva said.

         I glanced at the speedometer, and noted that it registered in the low 50s. "What do they do there?" I asked.

         "That's what I wanted to know," Papa agreed. Now his speed was dropping below 45.

         "Papa, the speed limit is 55," I pointed out.

         "That doesn't mean you have to go 55," Papa said.  "Now I wondered about this place. I just don't like it that the government won't let people see it. So one day I decided to find out about it. "

            We were down to 35, and the cars behind us were roaring up and then switching lanes, often uncomfortably close to our bumper. Many made unpleasant gestures as they passed us. "Papa, if we're going this slow, we may get hit," I said, quietly but firmly.

         "Let them hit us," Papa said. "So I pulled off on this exit, and almost as soon as I got off the Parkway, I was stopped by a guard."

         "You should have seen the guard's face," Eva said.

         35 and holding, I noted.

          Papa continued. "'You can't come in here, sir,' he said to me.
         "'Why not?' I asked him. 'I'm an American citizen!'

         "'Sir, you'll have to turn around,' he said. And that's all I could get out of him. I couldn't see a damn thing, and he wouldn't tell me a damn thing about the place!"

         Eva chuckled.

         Having slowly passed the exit and finished his story, Papa again accelerated and I stopped hyperventilating. However, he continued to slow down to what I saw as dangerously low speeds whenever he saw something that merited a look and a story. In local driving, he would even come to a complete stop in the road on occasions when he found something of particular interest.

         As the years passed, Papa continued to drive locally. However, he began to leave the highway driving to Eva, who was eight years younger than he, although I was never convinced that made me safer in their car. Papa, in an exercise of gallantry, would always insist when Eva was driving that he would ride in the back seat, enabling me to enjoy the comfort of the more spacious front seat. Kind of him as it was, I found myself thinking of how much closer to the windshield that put my skull.

         A complicating factor in going out together in a car was that both Papa and Eva hated seatbelts. Having driven for years before cars came equipped with seatbelts, they didn't take kindly to that new addition. As we were heading out on an excursion during one visit, I reached to buckle my seatbelt.

         "You're not going to use a seatbelt!" Eva exclaimed.

         "I always do," I said.

         "Your Poppa and I never use them," Eva said. "They're really very unsafe!"

         "Most dangerous thing in the world," Papa commented.

         "They say that seatbelts save lives," I pointed out.

         "Maybe a few," Papa grudgingly acknowledged. "But they're going to kill more people than they ever save. They're going to trap people in cars."

         "How will people get out if there's a fire?" Eva demanded.

         "You unbuckle," I suggested.

         "It adds an extra step," Papa said. " And what if the seatbelt jams and that car's on fire? What if the person is unconscious? No, it will just waste valuable time. Seatbelts make car accidents much more dangerous! Much more! I'd never use one!"

         "It's very foolish. It makes me very nervous that you're riding in the car with that seatbelt buckled!" Eva told me.

         Seatbelts remained an issue of discussion any time we got into the car. Papa would make a comment or two about the danger they presented, and then let the matter drop. Eva, however, got very distressed over my seatbelt use and argued and criticized over it relentlessly. Sometimes when she was driving, I would even, despite great trepidation, go unbuckled to pacify her, provided that it was just local driving. For highways, no matter their objections, I insisted on wearing my seatbelt.

         Eva, who was very short, had outfitted her large car to accommodate her small stature. The front seat was moved as far forward as possible, so that she could reach the pedals. She also had a thick wooden plank over the driver's seat, so that she sat high enough to see over the dashboard. She covered the plank with fluffy, ruffled cushions. Thus equipped, she was ready to go, and to go fast. Eva did not believe in letting other drivers get ahead of her. She would zigzag from lane to lane in order to pass the other cars. Still, I would have to say that she spent the bulk of her highway time in the farthest left lane.

         One afternoon, as Eva was speeding us along the Beltway, we were witness to a horrible incident. A car well ahead had pulled over on the right into the breakdown lane. Even from the far left lane, we could see the front passenger door open as someone deposited a puppy on grass, and then they sped away.  Cars around us began to slow. Eva, who loved all animals, and particularly dogs, came to a complete stop in the far left lane and began to cry.

         "Keep going, Eva," I shouted, afraid we'd be hit. "Keep going!"

         "Oh, the poor little puppy!" she cried, as cars swerved around us. "How can someone do that?"

         "They should be arrested! But you can't stop on the highway, darling," Papa said, "no matter what the bastard did."

         "Oh, Pat!" she cried. "The poor little thing!"

          Meanwhile, a car on the right pulled into the breakdown lane, stopped, and a kind soul scooped up the poor pup.

         "The puppy's all right, Eva," I said.

         "It will be hit by a car!" she continued.

         "Someone picked it up! Someone has it!" I said. "It's safe!"

         "How could someone do that?" she sobbed.

         "They've got it, darling," Papa said. "The puppy's safe!"

         "Really?" she asked.

         "I saw the woman from that green car pick it up!" I said.

         Eva breathed one of her deep sighs, wiped her eyes, and resumed speeding down the road.

         That summer, we were invited for dinner to the home of some friends of Papa and Eva on a hot Saturday night. Eva, whose size four shoes were a tight fit at the best of times, squeezed her feet into an attractive pair of summer shoes and dressed in bright colors for the occasion. Despite Papa's complaint that red lipstick made anyone look garish, she applied her signature bright red lipstick, daubed on the scent that she mixed herself, and put on earrings too. Papa obligingly changed his shirt, put on fresh khakis, and wore his penny loafers as well as his teeth that evening. Getting into the car, I mentally juggled the prospect of Eva at the wheel, the short local drive and the prospect of a long debate about seatbelts. I decided to skip the argument and live dangerously. Arriving on time and in good condition, we enjoyed a very pleasant evening with congenial hosts. The food and conversation were both top notch, and Papa and Eva, it seemed to me, were on their best behavior. The first hint of a problem came when we were leaving.

         Eva, who had slipped her shoes off before dinner, discovered that she couldn't get her shoes on again. She ended up carrying them to the car.

         "Shall I drive, Eva?" I asked hopefully. I had made similar offers on myriad occasions, and the answer had never been yes.

         "I'm perfectly fine to drive," Eva said, climbing into the car. "I'll just drive barefoot!"

         "I don't think it's legal to drive barefoot," I commented, pulling the passenger seat back so that Papa could climb into the back of their sedan.

         "Maybe not," Papa said, "but it's a damn fool law if you can't drive without shoes on! What the hell difference would it make?"

         "I do it all the time in the summer," Eva said. "The heat makes my feet swell!"

         Papa, who was willing to argue from a variety of viewpoints, suggested, "You need a larger size of shoe, darling."

         "I do not, Pat! You know I've always worn a size four!"

         "You've always worn a size four," Papa said. "And you can't get them on your feet because they don't fit properly, darling!" He settled into the back seat as Eva checked the car mirrors.

         "You don't know anything about it, Pat!" she said.

         "I don't know anything about it," Papa echoed. "Of course, you still can't get your shoes on, darling, and my shoes always fit me."

         "Oh, just be quiet!" Eva said.

         I decided it would be a bad time to reintroduce the seatbelt argument, and we set off unbuckled for the ten minute ride home. Papa quieted down for a brief nap in the back, while Eva began happily to discuss the wonderful evening with their friends. As she made a right turn, I mentally noted the multi-lane road a block away, and particularly the red light in our direction.

         She just has a habit of driving faster than I do, I told myself. She sees it. Don't be so nervous.

         She must see it.

         Doesn't she see it?

         She doesn't see it!

         "Eva," I said sharply, "you've got a red light there."

         "I know!" Eva sounded irritated, but she immediately hit the brake hard.

         The brakes shrieked, slowing us, as I noticed in the traffic on the cross road a gasoline tanker, looking to be in the perfect position for a collision with us, and he had the green light. I thrust out a hand to the dashboard to keep myself in place as the car slid to a stop in a traffic lane. With a tremendous double-bang, we were hit by the truck.

         When we came to a stop, Eva was crying and flustered. My wrist hurt, but I could move it. Papa, startled out of his nap in the back seat, said, "What the hell happened?"

         "We were in an accident, Papa," I said. "We have to get out of the car!" I was very afraid of the possibility of a fire, and opened the door and pulled my seat forward to let Papa out of the back.

          "An accident," Papa muttered as he climbed out of the car.

         "Come on, Eva, we have to get out!" I said.

         "I don't even know how that happened!" she said. "He was driving much too fast!"

         The truck driver peered in at Eva through her window. "Are you all right?" he asked. "Is everyone all right?"

         Eva continued crying. "Just shaken up," I said.

         "Thank God!" he said. "I had the green. She came right into my lane out of nowhere! I hit my brakes and I swerved, but I didn't have room to go into the next lane and I couldn't stop in time to avoid her! Thank God the tank was almost empty!"

         Within minutes, people were directing traffic around us, and police arrived on the scene. Eva, meanwhile, continued to sit in the car.

         "Eva," I said, "get out of the car. We can't drive it home like this."

          "My car door won't open!" she said.

         "Then climb out this side," I encouraged her.  She finally slid over onto the passenger side, and was about to step out in her bare feet. "There's a lot of broken glass on the street, Eva," I told her. "You have to put on your shoes!"

         "I can't!" she said.

         "You have to!" I insisted. "Otherwise you'll cut your feet!"

          "Oh, darn!" She fumbled for her shoes, and then tried to wedge her toes into them. As she stood, she suddenly cried out in pain. "Oh!"

         "Are you all right?" I asked.

         "Are you hurt, darling?" Papa said.

         "These shoes hurt my feet, Pat!" she said, making a small cry with each step.

         "The G-D shoes!" Papa said. "Here, darling, hold my arm! There, there!"

         A policeman hurried over to me. "Shall I call an ambulance for her?"

         "No, she's O.K." I felt very silly as I told him, " It's just that her shoes hurt because her feet are swollen from the heat."

         The accident had happened right by a gas station with a phone booth outside. Handing me some coins, Papa instructed me to call their friends and ask them to pick us up.

         Still shuffling painfully in her tiny shoes, Eva looked up. "And make sure you don't worry them!" she added.

         I wondered how to word "We were hit by a truck" in a reassuring way.

         Happily, by the next morning at breakfast, we were all doing fine except for a few minor aches and pains.  "Our insurance company will call you for an account of what happened," Papa told me.

         "You can explain to them that it wasn't my fault," Eva said.

         "I think the car's a total loss," Papa said, "but the important thing is no one was hurt."

         "See?" Eva said. "You don't need seatbelts at all!"

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