I continued  being called on to use my van to transport kids long after we  no longer had children in  church school. This particular incident occurred while they were still a part of the school, but I'll include it here since we still owned the large van.

Working with young people is reputed to have its rewards, but you'd better believe, it can be hazardous.  If you don't want to be drafted into service as a driver on a lengthy field trip, it's not in your best interest to own a large van during the years when your own offspring are involved in some organization that solicits parent volunteers. The leaders in charge are adept in knowing how to inflict you with just the right amount of guilt to prevent you from saying "no" with a clear conscience.

The fact that I usually had three children involved at the same time made it easier for the leaders to shame me into making the commitment more often than some parent with only one child.  Once I reluctantly packed my bags and went on a five-day camping trip with a group of about forty youngsters ranging from ten to fifteen, when I was seven months pregnant with my fourth child. This is a time you can't even find a comfortable position in your own bed and certainly not with the facilities available in wilderness camping. I'm no nature enthusiast to begin with, nor do I have a particular fondness for other peoples' children.  I could have devised better ways to spend those prenatal days than wringing water from drenched sleeping bags and scrubbing bean soaked pots blackened from cooking over an open fire.

Countless times, I've risen in the pre-dawn hours and dragged my sleeping brood from their warm comfortable beds in order to embark with them on some escapade into the wilds, thought up by an over-zealous troop leader who apparently didn't have a life of his own. I've driven through torrential downpours, once even in spite of the fact my windshield wipers went on the blink.  Since I had no map and no idea of the location of our destination, I dared not stop for fear of losing sight of the vehicle ahead of me, which was in turn following the one ahead of it.

I have battled mosquitoes, poison ivy, fire ants, ticks, chiggers, and bees. I've dealt with children who were homesick, ill, injured, picked on, troublemakers, and even one who found himself in too close a proximity to a skunk.  More than once, I've been at the mercy of young naturalists, who go around capturing snakes to impress their pals and give their leaders heart attacks.

When I think of those self sacrificing days, one trip in particular comes to mind that began around one a.m. on Mother's Day. I never learned whose brain was behind this day-long field trip which involved me driving from south Louisiana to the state line northward with a van crammed with juveniles who would have preferred, as would I, to have continued sleeping in their warm beds.  In addition to my three kids and me, my van carried a young dating couple who had agreed to come along and be of what service they could.  So far, they were occupying the only other seat other than mine and were so entwined in the darkness of the night I couldn't tell which one of them was which.

Nine adolescents were sprawled on pillows in every direction throughout the van. The trip required changing state highways several times, and as usual, I was relying on the car ahead of me to guide me to our destination.  Since the hour was early and there was little traffic, the driver of the lead car decided to ignore the posted speed limit.  My van was bringing up the rear of our little caravan, and I certainly had no intentions of being left behind.  We had just passed through some sleepy little Louisiana town with a Cajun-sounding name when a police siren whined.  Glancing in the side mirror, I could see the revolving red lights, and my heart sank. The rear lights of the car ahead of me were rapidly disappearing into the distance, and I knew I was the sacrificial lamb.

I braked to a stop and heard an authoritative voice on a bull horn demanding  I descend from the van and come forward. Shining a light in my face, the patrolman seemed satisfied I looked harmless.  He approached and demanded my license. It didn't take me long to realize in the pre-dawn hours while changing purses, I had failed to transfer the vital document.  I dared not mention it but dug more furiously into the compartments of my purse, while mumbling about it being Mother's Day, and I was a mother, who was getting hopelessly lost while the people who were really to blame for speeding were escaping, unpursued into the night.

"Who else is in this van?" the patrolman asked in an unfriendly tone.

" Sir, just some children I'm responsible for, and I sure don't know what I'm going to do if those cars I'm supposed to be following don't stop and wait."

He walked to the door and flashed his light into the van and cleared his throat. "Lady," he said. "Stop digging right now! If it turns out you don't have your license, I don't want to know about it. I'd have to take you in, and we don't have the facilities to deal with this.  If there's anyone else with a license in there, you let them drive, and get out of here before I change my mind."

I breathed a deep sigh of relief. It had been a close call, but then again, there probably wasn't too much danger of him changing his mind. Tearing up an unfinished ticket was a whole lot simpler than dealing with what he saw inside that van. Besides, he probably had a mother too.

I had survived another close call. Luckily, the male half of the young lover combo had a license, so I let him take over. It probably wasn't the safest thing for all concerned, since his girlfriend now wanted to share the driver's seat but, hey, seating was limited. You do what you have to do. Forty miles down the highway at a truck stop, we caught up with the rest of the caravan. Dawn was breaking in the east. Things were definitely looking up, and best of all I had a perfect excuse not to drive.