The Coral Gables Times

Car Pools You can't beat 'em— but, for goodness' sake, don't join 'em

BY ROBERT DE ROOS THERE was a kind of logic about it. I had to drive to work anyway, didn't I? So why not take our two daughters to nursery school and pick up two or three other children on the way? I will state right here that this logic was not mine. It was supplied by the blue-eyed logician I married and who has since given the world those splendid daughters. So I resigned the captaincy of my soul and became the skipper of a car pool. I am now emeritus. The little monst... that is, the girls have now achieved a kind of simulated womanhood. They drive themselves now. But as a car poolist, ret., I naturally have many memories of the endless days and nights I spent conveying the very youthful youth of western America to and from the unbelievable number of social and educational affairs they engage in. They do more traveling than a Secretary of State. And all the way by car. Let me share one precious memory. If it does not chill the cockles of your heart, you have never been at the helm of a car being pooled. I can add that the memory goes back more than 10 years, and it is as fresh and ugly today as it was then. Nursery-school car pool. The kids were two- and three-year olds, and nursery school was the first big event of their lives. The first time away from Mother. The first three were no problem. But before the fourth passenger—a demure little girl—came aboard she had to be unstuck from her mother. It was something like carding wool. When she did get into the car, she gave me a baleful look. Then she said, "I don't like you," and started to cry. "Oh, she'll be all right," I assured Mother. "It's just that it's the first day." Smiles. "Watch the door. Good-bye." I carried that car pool every school morning for three months. And every morning little Miss Borgia gave me a poisonous look along with her, "I don't like you." Then she'd cry all the way to school and get out still screeching. What a way to start the day! My work fell off. I snarled at blameless co-workers. It was a good thing summer came and the nursery school ceased or no telling what would have happened to my career. Looking back, I suppose those littlest ones were the worst. They were not yet out of the jungle and lived by tooth and claw. Ginny grabs Susan's doll. Gary pushes Susan to the floor, and Bobby, showing promise for one so young, lands a fairish left jab to Ginny's cheek. Then everybody cries. And the bouncing! Boys and girls, freed from the restraint of Mother, bounce. As they bounce, they scream. Bounce. Shriek. Bounce. Scream. I have been in the tropics, surrounded by howler monkeys in full cry, and I can swear it was quieter than some of the cars I have pooled. The only adult thing to do is to stop the car and say, in a quiet and reasonable manner: "ALL RIGHT. ALL RIGHT. EVERYBODY SHUT UP. I WANT ABSOLUTE QUIET." But this is not always the complete answer. I once cowed my crowd into silence after a back-seat Gettysburg only to find out later that one of the girls had received a bloody nose in the fracas. You should have seen the back seat! "Why didn't you tell me?" I asked her. "You told us all to be quiet," she said quietly. She had me there. After the first year of car pooling, none of the passengers pays any attention to the driver. Long before the invention of astronauts, car-pool drivers knew about weightlessness. They not only are weightless, they Continued on page 24 I resigned the captaincy of my soul and became the skipper of a car pool—for countless boys and girls. ILLUSTRATION BY ARNOLD ROTH

22 Suburbia Today, December 1962