Coach's Corner
By Andy "Coach" Cotton, Fri., Oct. 2, 1998
"By all accounts." I heard about these events only long after the fact. In road-side inns. In I-Hops over breakfast. Short bursts as I tuned in to the middle of Sportscenter late at night. Old newspapers and overheard conversations. I missed it all. The whole damn thing. Didn't see a minute of the wild card race. Only replays of home runs. No football at all. I was on a long road trip to Northern California. Adam was finally going to college.
Late in September, the day arrived. The rented Lincoln was traded in at the last minute for an even bigger -- and we needed every inch -- Mercury Grand Marquis (a huge,yawing boat of a vehicle, with the turning radius of a battleship). My girlfriend put some of her compulsive habits to constructive use and did a remarkable job of moving Adam's entire room, along with 300 CDs, into the car. Everything had a place. Not an inch was wasted. So what if a passenger couldn't change position for 2,000 miles. A small price to pay to fit in yet another CD case. Four hours behind schedule, The Big Merc lurched West.
We embarked to California on the Southern Route. How, I wondered, did anyone long ago survive this trip? Once past Junction, it's desert all the way to the coast. Big Bend, El Paso, the wasteland that is New Mexico, Tucson, Phoenix, Blythe, Death Valley, Palm Springs. Desert, desert, desert. I dwell morbidly on Linda Hamilton driving into an uncertain future at the end of The Terminator.
To amuse myself and provide a respite from the monotony of the terrain and Pink Floyd, I occasionally let Adam drive. I can assure you this is a terrifying experience: certainly well beyond the pale of the artificial fear of something as benign as a roller coaster, where you're pretty certain you won't really die. My son long ago developed the disconcerting habit of driving with his knees. Add to this the swaying, pitching bulk of the overloaded Grand Marquis, a heavy cross wind, driving speeds well in excess of the posted limits, and my disconnected son bopping away with his headphones on, and you can understand why I drove most of the way.
It was a good time for me and Adam -- sadly, probably the last occasion we'll ever spend so much time together. We talked about many subjects during four days in the car. Girls, music, college, whatever. He spent a great deal of time trying to explain an incredibly complex belief system of his put forth by something or someone known as The Pleiadians. It features a grim forecast of world destruction -- sooner rather than later. Again, I think of Linda Hamilton. We argued about this for days. In an adult I'd be disturbed by this, hopeless, complicated philosophy. For an 18-year old, well, I'm glad he's thinking.
We arrived, on schedule, in Santa Cruz. The school mascot is a Banana Slug. With this sort of unconventional institutional talisman, you can surmise the student body didn't look like your average, clean-cut frosh. Nose rings, pink hair, no hair, baggy pants, and Hendrix posters were common. It looked like an international training center for Thundercloud Subs. The only rain of the trip began to fall as we commenced the mammoth job of unloading the Grand Marquis. The soft mist soon turned into a steady, cold downpour. A welcoming brochure had promised, "A slug would be there to lend a hand," but as the rain intensified, nary a slug was to be seen or had.
I hung around for a while, but soon it became clear it was time to leave. Adam was busy with a whole new world -- one that, for the first time, didn't include his old Dad. With a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye, I hugged him. I wished him a good life. When I got back to the parking lot the Grand Marquis was empty. The rain had stopped. The Big Merc felt very lonely and very cold.
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