Freeway Reading

I don't remember the occasion, but a friend and I were driving on the freeway the other night. I was sitting there watching the lights fly by and I was taken back to my childhood.

I remembered all of the trips my family would take to my grandma's house that would ultimately result in us driving back home after dark. I would have, undoubtedly, carried a book or two with me to read on the trip and, as I get very involved in the books I read, I would find it immensely difficult to let the story go for the hour ride ahead of me.

So I would come up with a way to continue reading even though it was dark and we weren't allowed to have the lights on (because my Dad was driving and that would be a horrible idea): I would sit by the window and hold my book up to catch the light from the street lamps lining the freeway. I would catch a sentence--a paragraph if I was lucky--and wait until the light was no longer enough to discern the letters on the page. Then I would wait. As soon as there was a sliver of light I would resume my story.

Now that I look back on it I realize that this probably wasn't good for my eyes, but it was worth it to me. And you know? It probably still would be: stories make any trip better.