Vignette From My Parents' Visit, Mark Three
Posted 5 April 2009 in Strange Conversations by Catriona
SCENE: Top of Milton Road, after the rain.
DURATION: Three minutes. (I checked and double-checked this.)
MY FATHER: Well, the cars aren’t moving at all.
ME: No, because we’re coming up to the Hale Street entrance.
MY MOTHER: “The hills are alive . . .”
ME: Mother.
MY FATHER: There must be some busy road feeding into this.
ME: Yes, Hale Street. It leads to the main road to the Sunshine Coast.
MY MOTHER: “Oh, the buzzing of the bees in the cigarette trees, and the soda-water fountains . . .”
ME: Mother, I know how to make it look like an accident.
MY FATHER: We’ve been stuck here for ages!
ME: It’s been three minutes, and we’re almost at the lights.
MY MOTHER: “Champion, the Wonder Horse!”
ME: Ack!
Notice Nick’s conspicuous silence throughout this.
Share your thoughts [11]
1
Heather wrote at Apr 5, 10:47 pm
It’s like some other dimension! A dimension where people only speak in non-sequiturs! I love it!
2
Catriona wrote at Apr 5, 11:20 pm
If only my mother been speaking in non-sequiturs. She was, alas, singing: and with the exception of the bit from The Sound of Music, she was deliberately singing songs that had driven us mad on previous car trips.
I left out the bit where she started reading signs off walls later in the trip. And the rousing rendition of “Mr Frog Went A-Courting.”
3
Tim wrote at Apr 6, 12:51 am
Who was driving?
4
Matthew Smith wrote at Apr 6, 01:40 am
I’m with Nick on this one. Silence is the only rational response.
5
Wendy wrote at Apr 6, 01:48 am
It all sounds very entertaining…however I was not in the car :) so I imagine that could have been quite a different experience.
6
Catriona wrote at Apr 6, 03:30 am
Oh, my father was driving. He always does: he suffers terribly from motion sickness and is also an extremely nervous passenger, so he’s always the driver.
He’s just an extremely impatient driver.
When we were driving up from New South Wales and were caught in the flooding at the beginning of last year—when we had to cut across from the New England Highway to the Pacific Highway because the roads were closed—was the worst: imagine this conversation, repeated with some slight variations but without cessation for seventeen-and-a-half hours.
Still, I have a mother who will take it as a joke when I tell her I can make it look like an accident, which I suppose is worth a few renditions of “Big Rock Candy Mountain.”
7
Wendy wrote at Apr 6, 03:53 am
i quite like big rock candy mountain actually
8
Catriona wrote at Apr 6, 04:02 am
You wouldn’t if you’d ever spent seventeen-and-a-half hours in a car with my mother.
I like some versions, but I find it’s easily rendered saccharine (as per Pete Seeger—no offense, Pete!), instead of sounding like the Great Depression-inspired fantasy that I think it actually is. I liked the Harry McClintock version from O Brother, Where Art Thou.
9
michelle wrote at Apr 6, 04:10 am
Intrigued by this exchange, and unfamiliar with this song about “cigarette trees”, I googled the lyrics. Is your mam aware that the original final verse of the song (according to Wikipedia) is:
I’ve hiked and hiked and wandered too, / But I ain’t seen any candy./ I’ve hiked and hiked till my feet are sore / And I’ll be damned if I hike any more/ To be buggered sore like a hobo’s whore / In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.Let’s hope she can liven up future car trips with that one.
10
Wendy wrote at Apr 6, 04:11 am
yes maybe not. 17 and half hours sounds a little excessive…that o brother where art thou soundtrack is one of all time favourite things
11
Catriona wrote at Apr 6, 04:17 am
Just quietly, Michelle, I don’t think I’ll be mentioning that final verse to my mother any time soon: I don’t really want her singing lyrics like that. Not while I’m around, anyway.
It’s a fascinating song, though—and the Wikipedia page is very interesting.
I love the soundtrack, too, Wendy, but unfortunately it was after listening to that on a long car trip that my mother started singing “Big Rock Candy Mountain.” She took to the McClintock version (minus that last verse!) a little too enthusiastically.