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Washing the vehicle before a road trip is a Rutledge family tradition.

Washing the vehicle before a road trip is a Rutledge family tradition.

It was springtime, and I was 11 and helping my dad wash our car on the street in front of our house. A group of neighborhood girls walking past said hello. Dad caught me watching them disappear down the street.

“Gee, Mark,” he said sweetly and high. “You smell just like a man when you sweat.”

To this day, I often think of my dad and that moment in time whenever I’m hand-washing a car. It was among the first of many car washing experiences with him. He definitely indoctrinated me into adopting most of his clean-vehicle standards.

“If you take pride in something,” he’d say, “you’ll want to keep it nice and clean. The more pride you take in something, the longer it will be around for you to enjoy.”

He invoked that logic a lot, but especially with cars. Dad always took pride in his cars. If I don’t shine on my vehicles quite as much as he did, my daughters have fallen even farther from the tree.

Each daughter has her own car now, and I have seen each one actually wash and take pride in those vehicles. But they choose the when and the why for that. Not me. That’s OK.

The two still living with us were packing for a week at the beach. Because they were taking friends, they borrowed the family van. Were they going to wash the van before leaving? No.

I reminded them about our family tradition of never striking out on the open road without first giving the van a top-to-bottom thorough cleaning. They said that was my tradition and not theirs. A heated discussion ensued.

“Dad, we’re going to the beach,” one daughter said. “You don’t wash your car before you go the beach just to get sand and salt all over it. That makes no sense. We’ll wash the van when we come back. That makes sense.”

It’s an argument as old as dirt. Why wash something when it’s only going to get dirty again? That’s like the familiar case against making the bed every morning when you’re just going to crawl right back into it every night.

It was acknowledged that, pre-vacation, I do always wash the vehicle, vacuum and clean the interior and wash the windows inside and out. But why? This, my daughters said, has never been understood.

I said only that I have reasons and that my reasons are good. Attempting to elaborate during a heated conversation seems pointless.

I can understand that my carrying on my father’s pre-trip car wash tradition might appear a little obsessive compulsive. But there really are good reasons.

A clean car is easier and more pleasant to pack. Starting out in a clean car, with no dust on the dash, dirt on the floor mats or sticky stuff in the cup holders, is more comfortable. Clear windows are easier, and safer, to navigate from behind.

It might be a family tradition that dies with me, but I did what I always do. Even though I wasn’t going anywhere myself, I gave the van the traditional top-to-bottom. I even guilted one of the girls into helping.

As the soap bucket was filling, I noticed something scrawled in the grime on the back window. “HOT MOM.”

Unfortunately, there was no way to preserve that graffiti and meet my other clean-car objectives.

Contact Mark Rutledge at mrutledge@reflector.com.

www.ChowanHerald.com 423 S Broad St Edenton, NC 27932 Main Phone: 252-482-4418 Customer Care Phone: 252-329-9505

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