{"id":1279,"date":"2022-12-23T11:24:34","date_gmt":"2022-12-23T20:24:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/?p=1279"},"modified":"2022-12-23T11:24:34","modified_gmt":"2022-12-23T20:24:34","slug":"the-trip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/?p=1279","title":{"rendered":"The Trip"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Chapter Ten in \u201cDecades with the Squad\u201d by my late father, William Palmer Jervey, Jr.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blogger\u2019s note: In filling in for my inconstant muse, I offer another story from my father\u2019s book. This one, while ending happily, reminds me of a favorite quote, sort of a parent\u2019s lament:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

                When they\u2019re little they\u2019re on your hands,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

               And when they\u2019re big they\u2019re on your heart.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This story deals mainly with personal frustration. The anxiety and frustration that all parents endure when their young ones start to \u201cleave the nest.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When our nineteen-year-old daughter, who had been gainfully employed for two years and had saved her money, told us that she was going on a two-week vacation and flying alone to London, I literally broke into a cold sweat. I manfully resisted the temptation to throw myself at her feet and beseech her not to go. Instead, I feigned approval and interest. Milly and I could think of no valid reason (although plenty of invalid ones) why she should not go. So we dutifully put her on a British airliner at Dulles on a Friday night at 11:00 p.m. We sternly instructed her to call us as soon as she arrived. We returned home heavy in heart and thoroughly convinced we would never see her again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As you may imagine, after twelve hours we were as punchy as punchy can be every time the telephone rang. We sat up until midnight Saturday. Having heard nothing, we went to bed and eventually fell into a fitful slumber. From this we were blasted by the telephone at 6:00 a.m. Sunday. Milly beat me to the telephone by half a head, only to find it was not a call from London, but from the dispatcher in the sheriff\u2019s office with a rescue, there being no radios in those days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I must confess to the use of profanity. I hope Milly didn\u2019t hear me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The nature of the call added insult to injury. A Saturday night reveler had fallen off the porch and twisted his back. By morning the \u201canesthetic\u201d had worn off and he began to hurt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This one truly drove me to thoughts of mayhem, and I had to resist the urge to open the back door and push stretcher, patient, and all out onto the highway as we sped along.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our beloved daughter was finally able to get a call through on Monday. She returned on schedule and had a big time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now we laugh. Then we didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chapter Ten in \u201cDecades with the Squad\u201d by my late father, William Palmer Jervey, Jr. Blogger\u2019s note: In filling in for my inconstant muse, I offer another story from my father\u2019s book. This one, while ending happily, reminds me of a favorite quote, sort of a parent\u2019s lament:                 When they\u2019re little they\u2019re on your […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[421],"tags":[519,518,517],"class_list":["post-1279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-decades-with-the-squad","tag-adult-children","tag-communication","tag-empty-nest"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1279"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1280,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1279\/revisions\/1280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}