WHY I BELIEVE IN GUARDIAN ANGELS

They must have flew, fluttered and zoomed back and forth, calling in all the troops they could find when I jiggled any car keys. A guardian angel’s job was not an easy one in the 1970’s when there were no seat belt laws, and actually, no seat belts that worked worth a darn!

Our first brand-new car was our pride and joy. We traded Tony’s gas-guzzling bachelor car in for a brand-new shiny red 1973 VW Bug. In those days, we didn’t worry about seat belts. The ones in our Bug broke within the first year. I don’t think there was anything like car seats for babies back then. If there were, we were ignorant of them.

When our first baby was born, we put the baby in a small basket in the back seat with no straps in the back to secure it. When baby number two came, she was in the basket and child number one either sat next to the basket or in my lap.

Help! I need more guardian angels! This one is getting tough!

Baby number three got tricky. No more room for the basket. By then, we knew about child car seats, and purchased one. So child number two went into the car seat, and child one held baby on her lap.

Baby number four was put in a car seat next to child one, while child two and three sat in the little alcove that we called the “way-back” behind the back bench seat. We called them the “tadpoles” because they hadn’t sprouted longer legs yet, and could fit scrunched up in the way-back.

Baby number five meant no more car seat, so child one or two held the baby while they sat on the bench seat and tadpoles three and four sat in the way-back, as we called it.

Reinforcements! Reinforcements! This could be a potential funeral for seven!

Before I add on any more children (which I will do shortly) I must tell of the decline of our beloved VW. Not only did the seat belts quit working early on, but the heater also quit working around this time. Tony’s shoulders were way too wide for a VW Bug so he drove with his window down summer and winter so he could sit comfortably as he drove. We probably wore the poor heater out trying to keep us warm when he had his window down. Now the winter months necessitated us having blankets in the car and a window scraper for each of us. We would bundle in the car, then as soon as the doors were shut, the windows would quickly ice over on the inside because of condensation from all of our breathing. (We tried to convince the children not to breath, but they wouldn’t comply.) So everyone would scrape away at all the windows, which caused a delightful snow storm inside the car as we drove down the road.
But now comes baby number six. We already had three children on the bench seat and two in the way-back, so number six sat on my lap in the front. This worked pretty good until I was big-pregnant with baby number seven, so then a child had to hold number six in the back.

I NEED THE ROYAL NATIONAL GUARDIANS! AT LEAST 50 TROOPS: NOW!!!!

At this point, we finally purchased a new VW Van.

Now, the worst confession of all: If Tony was not there and I was driving with all the children in the car, I would have a daughter sitting in the front seat with the baby on her lap. If the baby cried, I would take the baby, WHILE I WAS DRIVING, and nurse it.

GUARDIAN ANGELS? YOU BET!!! It’s a miracle that we never had an accident that would surely have killed some, if not all, of us. I now look back and envision thousands of guardian angels protecting us from our stupidity!