Whats a Junction?

When I was in the 3^rd grade my father accepted a transfer from California to Oregon with his work. So from time to time we would travel back to our home town and visit with my grandparents. My mother and father would share driving the 700 mile round  trip.

Now, Mother would not trust my father to drive at night. This was because one time they were traveling together and she woke up in the passenger seat just in time to save them from driving over a cliff. He had fallen asleep at the wheel. As a result she mostly drove at night on trips.

One late night she was driving and dad was asleep in the passenger seat. My siblings were sacked out around me and I was leaning forward visiting with my mother.  We passed a railroad junction sign follow shortly by the exit sign for the city of Cave Junction.

I was puzzled and asked mother what is a junction?  She tried to explain it to me and for some reason I was not getting it. She was hit by an unexpected burst of inspiration and with one hand reached up and pulled an imaginary train whistle cord, “Woo! Woo! …”

My father comes straight up out his seat, tried to stand up in the car, hits his head on the ceiling and knocks himself out for a minute.  When he recovered  he wanted to know where the train was.  Mother pulled the imaginary train whistle cord again, “Woo! Woo! …” He started looking around out the windows to find the train.

At this both my mother and were over come with laughter and could not talk. And every time he ask about the train we would burst out in laughter. I think it took over an hour before mother was able to choke out the fact there was no train.

Just so you know there was a small dent in the car’s passenger side ceiling from then on.

Who will you marry?

As we grew up my mother kept 8×10’s of all us children on the mantel place. When a child left home they were told to send a new photo every two years.

So over the years all of us children got in the habit of sending one 8×10 to mother every time we had a studio setting photo.

During the first year of my second marriage, my bride and I had a studio photo made. We stopped by to visit with my parents and several siblings who had also stopped by for dinner. I presented mother with the new 8×10 of me and my new bride.

She took one look at the photo and commented, “She has the look.” As the photo was passed around several of my siblings agreed with mother, “Yes, she has the look.” I turned to my mother and demanded she explain herself. What does everyone mean by, “She has the look.”

She simply went and pulled the photo frame of myself from the mantel and extracted all the 8×10’s. She selected a photo from her desk and then 3 photos from my stack. Laying the photos out in row, she asked, “Who’s, who.” There in the row was my mother’s high school photo and 3 photos from my frame. There was me with my high school sweetheart, my 1st wife, and my new bride. I was completely dumbfounded and totally flabbergasted. Except for the outfits even I could not tell the women apart in the photographs.

Then it dawned on me what was meant by, “She has the look.”

Over the years, I had dated and married my mother.