Tales from the station wagon: "Don't tell your father"

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I was not raised in a household where many secrets were successfully kept, but I can still see the long stare from my mother behind the steering wheel of our station wagon du jour, and feel the weight of the pause before being told, “don’t tell your father.”

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It was an era when not all women drove, something I didn’t understand. Sure, if both parents were in the car, my father automatically took the wheel. But my Mom liked driving, and more importantly, the freedom it afforded her that more than a few of her friends didn’t have. My mother drove with something I can only describe as determination; her nickname was Leadfoot Iris, something she denied. It was apt. One time around the Sunday dinner table, we were quizzing the grandkids about traffic rules. “What does a red light mean?” we asked the five-year-old. “Stop,” she replied. And green? “Go.” And yellow? “Floor it”. She’d been driving with grandma.

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We’d go into Hamilton to the fabric shops. Mom was more comfortable on the Beach Strip instead of the bridge overpass. She was also, well, determined. When she nudged her speed just a little too high one day, we had the thrilling experience of being pulled over by police. Three small girls in the back seat, mouths unhinged and eyes as wide as saucers, watched as the officer chatted with my mother before handing her a speeding ticket. Looking back, I realize this was probably a first for my mother, who could charm anyone. As the cop strode back to his cruiser, she looked in the rearview mirror and smoothed her hair, looked directly at each of us, and said, “don’t tell your father.”

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The Beach Strip held other treasures, of course. Glorious, huge, turn-of-the-century cottages of the monied faced out onto Lake Ontario, but as fortunes turned, so too did the makeup of the community. No longer a summer playground, people from all walks of life snatched up properties in decay, where, regardless of initial intention, they often remained. Today it is again a thriving place, but fifty years ago, it was a peek into another world for a curious 7-year-old. 

A motorcycle club set up shop, their cement bunker surrounded by a chain-link fence, terrifying black dogs snapping at the end of their tethers. Small, high windows sported bars, there was no grass in the yard, and there was nothing I wanted a better look at than that house. My mother knew it. She would maintain her speed, eyes forward, and I swear, holding her breath. I would slap my face against the side window like a puppy, desperate to see something bad. One time, that mysterious door opened and two huge men emerged; my mother slowed all the way down for a few seconds and I gaped to my heart’s content.

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“Don’t tell your father,” she said as she sped up.

Had my father gotten a speeding ticket, he wouldn’t have cared who knew. That’s the manly take on such things, after all. But that didn’t mean there weren’t things he preferred my mother didn’t know, and if I happened to be along for the ride, it was to stay between us. 

I was probably 8 when I tagged along into town with Dad to fetch some part for something broken at the cottage. I was always on the lookout for moose or bears or chipmunks, and being alone with Dad meant I could sit upfront for a better view. Decades before airbags, even seatbelts weren’t mandatory and kids could call shotgun — and sometimes win. What I spied beside the two-lane blacktop was scruffy, but it definitely wasn’t a bear. Hoping only to get a better look at the man trudging with his thumb out, I ended up getting the best look of all. My Dad stopped.

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“Can only take you ten miles, but hop in,” said my father. The stranger got in the back seat as I swivelled my head around to stare at him over the bench seat. I’m sure there was small talk because my Dad was a talker, but we had an honest-to-god stranger in our car and I was speechless. I took in his layers of clothing, his unkempt hair, and the dusty backpack now sitting where I would tomorrow sit again. Years later, I would date men who looked fairly similar, but my current worldview was far more sheltered. At that moment all I could remember was every time we passed a hitchhiker, my parents would announce out loud, “so sorry we can’t help” as we flew by. I knew some grownups must pick them up, but not us. Did my father have a secret life of picking up hitchhikers? Did my mother?

We let him out at a crossroads near the cottage, and he resumed his position by the roadside. We drove another minute before my father spoke.

“Don’t tell your mother.”