Reading For Treasure: My Articles!

Reading for Treasure is my list of articles that are worth your attention. Click here for an introduction!

In the past few weeks, I have had an essay published and been featured in an article in two Jewish publications. So, this month, here are these two articles, both dealing with religion. 

When Humanistic Judaism Magazine decided to focus its winter issue on Judaism and science fiction, several people reached out and asked me if I’d like to contribute. It is true that my first experiences with science fiction were at my congregation’s religious school on Sundays. My love of science fiction and my philosophy as a Secular Humanistic Jew are two of the most important elements of my identity. So of course, I wrote a piece similar to my blog posts. This link is to the preview version of the magazine. My essay, “Sunday School Made Me a Science Fiction Fan,” is on page 12. 

Tablet Magazine is a Jewish publication that covers a wide range of topics from news and religion to culture, history, and sports. They have been exploring the diversity of the Jewish community through a series of discussions called “The Minyan,” which they describe as, “Roundtables on the state of the American Jewish community, bringing together people from a shared demographic or background—everyday people with personal opinions, not experts who earn their salaries discussing these issues.” A reporter reached out to me to participate in an online gathering of Jews who did not believe in God in the traditional sense of the concept. The reporter gathered a group virtually and we had a fascinating and thoughtful conversation that was published in this article. In addition to the article, a podcast version of this conversation will be released sometime soon.

Currently, I am reading Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution by R.F. Kuang

Van...Gone

I was relieved and embarrassed when I confessed to some friends that I felt very sad when I sold my minivan. It is a thing, not a person. Why would I get choked up when I turned over the keys, took off the license plates, and created an open spot in the driveway? I have never been bothered by getting rid of a vehicle before.

The van’s presence on the driveway was a sign of the development of our family. As my kids went to college and left the house, the van represented a time when we were together more often. We were busy, and we were all in that van.

I was also relieved because several friends said that they, too, grieved when they ended their relationships with their vans. Their vans represented the same things to them. They had shuttled their kids, took road trips, and journeyed to summer camps. For many of us, our vans were as old or older than our children. We had all grown up in the van!

But my van was different. My van was a Star Trek shuttlecraft. It was one of a kind, down to the double entendre license plate. It became an extension of my identity in a way. In retrospect, I wonder if that was healthy.

I was always shocked that my students knew about the van because I didn’t drive it to school! It didn’t matter. People in the community knew the van and recognized it. Weekly, I would run into someone in a store who would say some variation on, “I was looking for you. I saw the van in the lot, so I knew you were here.”

It was fun, funny, and sometimes odd when we came outside and found someone photographing the van. Everyone in the family could return a Vulcan salute from a passing vehicle on the highway. The van made people smile. It was a fun way to travel.

When I turned fifty years old, I bought a car; the van lost its spot in the garage and moved to the driveway. It became the “extra” car the kids drove or was used for special occasions. But it was still there. More than that, it was even more public since it was now in front of the house.

My children called it the “nerdmobile.” My brother thought kids at school would make fun of my children because of it. If that happened, I never heard about it. In fact, the kids had a sweet fondness for the van. It was a kind of member of the family. It was like a symbol of both my fatherhood and fandom. It was our presence on the road.

And now it is gone.

I procrastinated in both preparing to sell it and then actually making the sale. Logically, it was time. It needed repairs that we could not justify given how infrequently it was used.

But vans don’t live on logic alone.

I created an ad and, when no fans stepped forward to purchase it, I decided to make the break quick and clean and sold it to Carmax. On the way home, I was wondering if I had made the right choice. My wife had an evening meeting and I moped and grieved the rest of the night, alone in the house.

Just to be clear: my current car has no decorations. I have no plans for another Star Trek vehicle. I moved some pieces of the van into my car. I will eventually put its plates on the wall of the garage.

I wasn’t certain that I could – or should – write about selling the van. It felt silly and trivial. I was relieved and grateful when others shared their stories. It was heartening and reassuring when I posted about the van’s sale on Facebook and people understood what I was feeling.

It is odd to come home to an empty driveway. It is odd to come home to a house with no children. I am very slowly getting used to both. I will miss the van and all it represents. More than that, I miss the people it shuttled and schlepped.

Waiting for the Van to Go

With the impending arrival of our second child, my wife and I decided that we needed a larger vehicle. We needed to be able to schlep kids, grandparents, strollers,  and lots of other stuff. So we became yet another suburban minivan family.

Long before a minivan was in our future, my wife had agreed that, should we ever get one, I could decorate it as a Star Trek style shuttlecraft. We did and, when they got older, my kids called it the nerdmobile. I loved my unique vehicle and the adventures we had in it!  

Our first van lasted about seven years. The second one is in its fourteenth year.  I drove car pools, took kids to and from overnight camp, went on road trips, and moved furniture, bikes, and everything in-between.

When I turned fifty, I bought myself a car and the van lost its place in the garage. It sits on the driveway. By that point, our younger child was driving, so it was convenient to have a third car. He could not get away with poor driving because everyone in our community recognized our special van!

Today, the van is parked in the driveway and is rarely driven. It got a few weeks of use when that younger child came home. We used it to take him to college. My wife used it when she took a few of her friends to Wisconsin. But most of the time, it sits there, waiting.

It waits for an occasion. It waits to be full of loud laughter again.  It waits for another carpool or baseball game. It waits for the kids to come home. Me, too.

And that may be why I am so reluctant to let it go. Selling the van means facing the fact that those days are over.  Of course, I have had to pay a lot of money to fix it when things go wrong. Older cars are much like older people; they need repairs regularly.

Yet, that isn’t the key issue. Although I would love to say I am hanging on to it because it is a special decorated Star Trek car, that isn’t the truth either. Selling the van is the end of an era. It says that the nest is empty. It says that the kids really live elsewhere. It says that our family’s childhood is over and it is time to move on.

It is, and I have such mixed feelings about that.  

I rationalize the issue: even though we don’t drive the van much, it is nice to have a third vehicle when the kids are here. When one of the cars is in the shop, it is great to have a spare. Several friends have needed it. I use the van to take my Sunday school kids on field trips a few times a year. See, I need a van! I really do!

This summer, both kids came in for a visit. My folks joined us and we took the whole troupe downtown for a play and dinner. Once again, we rode together in the van. It was our family room on wheels again, possibly for the last time.

That is the truth the van’s presence in the driveway obscures. There are fewer and fewer times that the entire clan is together. There are no more car pools or school dances. No teams or casts or friend groups need a ride to the party. I haven’t been a minivan dad for a long time.

I enjoy driving my car. It has some fancy features that were not available when I bought the van. My son prefers driving the “new” car to the van. It has a great sound system, he says.

So I am researching selling the van. It will seek new worlds, and so will we. All of us will boldly go where we have not gone before: the next stage of development for our little family.

Let’s Hear It For The Nerdmobile!

Years before my family and I even considered a minivan, I had a great idea: What if I decorated a vehicle to look like one of the shuttlecrafts on Star Trek? I shared this idea with wife and, perhaps since we weren’t talking about actually buying one, she gave it a thumbs up. That was all I needed.

We didn’t need a minivan with one child: a sedan and a fun red sports car worked for our family. However, when child number two was on his way, we knew that we’d need more space. Since space is the final frontier, it was time for my idea to be a reality. It was time to trade my bachelor sports car in for the ultimate symbol of parenting: a minivan.

When people ask me why I turned my minivan into a Star Trek shuttlecraft, I tell them that, if I was going to be a minivan dad, I was going to own a vehicle worth driving. It would a fun expression of my love of Star Trek and the fact that I was now a parent schlepper shuttling my kids around town. 

The first “shuttlecraft” was a gray 1997 Oldsmobile Silhouette. I debated whether it should be white or gray. My wife pointed out that a white van with red stripes would look like an ambulance. Besides, my model shuttlecraft was gray. So I went to a sign shop and asked them to make my van look just like it. They did a great job! I drove the first shuttle Galileo for about seven years before replacing it with the van I have been driving for ten years in April.

And now I am facing the end of that era: I am about to replace my minivan with a car, a sedan. Now that my younger child is about to get his drivers license, I am finally considering purchasing a car to replace what my elder child affectionately calls the “nerdmobile.” My minivan days are coming to an end.

Our minivan has, in many respects, been like everyone else’s: It has been in the elementary school pick up line, the high school parking lot, and done a ton of car pooling. It has been to sports games, rehearsals, and field trips. It has taken dozens of Sunday school students to churches, temples, mosques, mandirs, and other houses of worships. It lets us take grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, neighbors, and friends with us! It goes back and forth from summer camp every year.

However, there are aspects to our minivan that most parents will never experience. Do people often photograph your car? Do you come out of stores to find people gathered around it? Do people flash you the Vulcan salute on the highway? How many notes have been left on your minivans that were not about car accidents?

In our community, the van is our on-the-road signature. When we are further afield, it is our connection to the wonderful science fiction and Star Trek fan community. We are never anonymous on the road. While this may have some obvious downsides, it has also means that my elder child, when driving her father’s “nerdmobile” knew that she would be held accountable for her choices on the road – and her father would be, too.

The van isn’t going away immediately. For the short term, we’ll keep it as a third car. But its days are numbered. We’re not pushing strollers, carrying diaper bags, or signing up for carpools any more. We don’t move bikes, sports equipment, or double basses any more. A sedan will be just fine for our needs.

Yet, I will miss the “Enterprise” as others call it. If you drive a minivan, you know that it is a little house on wheels. It is where the kids will talk and reveal their concerns and feelings. It is where their friends will forget there is an adult at the helm and let a dad eavesdrop on their adolescent concerns. It held the entire family when the entire family was in one place. That doesn’t happen much any more.

We boldly went where no minivan had gone before. That journey is coming to an end. A new one is beginning. We had the shuttle. We had the shuttle’s next generation. Now it is time to go explore new vehicles and new stages of life. Something tells me that I am going to miss the nerdmobile and the young family it transported.