"I GET THE FRONT SEAT!!!"

Remember "calling" the front seat when you were a kid? We would call it but in our house that was a moot point because my mom didn't care who called it - whoever had it when we she got in the car was the winner!

My mom always took hours to get ready to go anywhere. We all knew that once she started getting ready we still had at least 2 hours to get the front seat. More than likely we had three hours!

This didn't matter to my little sister, Rhonda. As soon as momm would announce her intentions to leave, Rhonda would race outside and park her behind in the front seat. She would bake in the summer sun and freeze in the winter but she didn't car as long as she didn't have to sit in the back seat.

Billy and I learned early that it was a waste of time to go outside for a couple of hours. We also learned that we could wait and trick Rhonda out of the seat so it didn't really matter. We would do something as simple as tell her that Mommy wanted her or tell an out and out lie that there was candy or some other treat waiting in the house.

Personally I didn't really care about the front seat. My preference was to sit in the middle in the back. I didn't mind the hump. If I sat in the middle, I could lean forward between the front seat and be part of the whatever my mom and dad had going on up front! Every now and then they would make me sit back so I couldn't eaves drop on their conversations.

We also played "curves". I don't know if that was just a West Virginia game or if kids everywhere played it. There were usually 3 of us in the back seat. Every time we would round a curve we would lean as hard and as painfully into each other as we could manage. Someone always ended up in tears. We were banned from playing but we didn't care. It was too much fun!