Christmas Memories
Big Opportunity
Snowy circumstances.
I’ll never forget the Christmas my dad let me drive.
My grandparents lived out in Phoenix, Arizona, for over 20 years, so every December, we’d load up the family and make the long drive from Joplin, Missouri. If you’ve ever driven that stretch, you know—miles and miles of Texas, New Mexico, and maybe a little bit of Oklahoma just for good measure. It was a journey. And every year, I’d ask my dad if I could drive. Every year, he’d say no.
My dad was a rule follower. The man didn’t bend for anything—speed limits, curfews, store return policies. If there was a rule, it was there for a reason. So when we were cruising down the highway in the middle of the night on one of those long Christmas road trips, I was shocked when he turned to me and asked, “Jeff, you wanna drive?”
I was fifteen. No license. No permit. Nothing. Just an eager teenager who had been waiting for this moment.
“Uh, yeah, I wanna drive!” I said, probably trying not to sound too excited so he wouldn’t change his mind.
I think he did it because my mom was asleep. That’s the only explanation. There’s no way he would’ve handed over the keys under normal circumstances. But there he was, sliding into the passenger seat of our little Mazda MPV van like it was no big deal.
So there I was, cruising down the Interstate at 70 miles per hour, feeling like the king of the world, not a high school student. This was the coolest thing my dad had ever done. I couldn’t believe it.
And then it started to snow.
Not just a little flurry. No, this was an Albuquerque blizzard, the kind that comes out of nowhere and turns the road into an ice rink. The kind where you suddenly notice cars in ditches, hazards flashing, people looking at you like, “Good luck, buddy.”
I slowed down. I mean, way down. I was creeping at 15 miles per hour, gripping the wheel like it was my lifeline, but the crazy part? We were passing people. Other cars were spinning out or sliding off the road, and here I was, somehow keeping it together.
And then my mom woke up.
She took one look outside—cars skidding, snow piling up, her teenage son behind the wheel—and immediately lost it.
“JEFFREY CHARLES FORD! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”
Now, this was the moment of truth. This was when my dad could have snapped back into rule-follower mode and panicked. But instead, he stayed completely calm, looked at my mom, and said, “Just calm down. He’s got it.”
And I did. Well, at least until he decided it was time to switch out. But for those glorious, terrifying, incredible miles, I was driving in the middle of a snowstorm, and my dad trusted me.
That moment meant the world to me and to our relationship. Not just because it was a wild story I could tell for years (which, trust me, I have), but because for the first time, I felt like my dad saw me as a man—or at least a man in training. He handed me responsibility, and even when things got tough, he let me handle it.
Of course, I don’t think my mom ever fully recovered, but that’s a story for another time.
Be well,
Jeffrey Charles Ford