Looking back, it’s always easy to connect the dots and see how one thing led to another. That’s how we take out the randomness and turn in a nice and clean story, because in truth, you never know where the road’s going to take you. You just keep on going, and while you may know where you’re trying to get, sometimes you make a right turn or get off an exit you hadn’t planned on taking, only to find out you ended up exactly where you should.
Both literally and figuratively speaking.
A few years ago, Son spent a lot of time watching one particular YouTube channel, on history, and he learned all US Presidents by name and in order. When we that summer then spent a few weeks in New York, he went all in on US history and politics, reading everything he could get his hands on. I bought him a set of presidential collectors cards and by the next morning, he could even put faces to the names he already knew. He even drew funny “Little Presidents” comic strips.
However, one particular President was more close to his heart than others.
Abraham Lincoln.
On our first day in New York, he saw presidential bobbleheads in a souvenir shop, and absolutely wanted one, even if it meant spending more than half of his travel budget on it. Bill Clinton did surface as an alternative, but in the end, he chose “Honest Abe” and proudly carried it to our temporary home in Harlem and then spent the rest of the day admiring the miniature Lincoln.
Well, almost. About an hour after we’d come back from the city, I heard first a sound I didn’t recognize and then a wailing sound I’d recognize anywhere. Son had put his Abe on the couch, but the bobblehead’s big melon made it unstable and it fell on the ground. Mini-Abe got decapitated.
We glued it back together and I promised Son it’d be as good as new. The next morning, it was, and Son made put Abe back in its box, turning it into a bed for the bobble-president, which he then placed on the window next to his own bed.
Three weeks later, Abe flew with us to Sollentuna, and he’s been observing our lives from his spot on the bookshelf behind Son’s bed.
This year, we’re back in America for our summer vacation, but instead of staying in New York (or any other city) for three weeks, we took the show on the road and will drive from New York to Los Angeles. Today, as we were flying down Interstate 55 from Chicago to St. Louis, singing “Holiday Road” – the theme song from National Lampoon’s Vacation – I saw a sign that made me stop singing. It said, “Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.”
The upside of being on a road trip is that there’s no plan so you can do whatever you want to. For some, that may also be the downside. We had imagined that we’d get to St. Louis a little earlier, and another stop would surely mean that we might not make as much ground as we would have wanted, but on the other hand, Wife and I also knew that way back in the car, sitting on the extra chair in the trunk – because it’s cozy – was one of the biggest Abe fans in the world.
“Should we…?” I asked Wife.
“You think he’s still into it?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe we should offer him the chance. Ask him.”
I asked Son if he’d want to make a stop at the Abe museum.
“Yes, that’d be great!”
That settled it. We drove into Springfield, IL, and visited the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. (I was the first Finn to put a pin in the map).
Son led the way, making insightful comments on Lincoln’s life as we followed in the president’s footsteps from the log cabin to the general store to the White House to Gettysburg all the way to Ford’s Theatre and back to Springfield.
After a stop at the gift shop, we got back into the car, and got back into singing Holiday Road. About an hour after we had left Springfield, Wife and I heard a voice from the back.
“I have to say, that even though it’s not late yet, I will declare this day already a great success,” Son shouted.
Some 7150 kilometers away, on a book shelf in Sollentuna, Sweden, a bobblehead Lincoln was nodding.
