Snow Bug, Hamilton, Montana

Family lore tells the tale of all nine of us - 2 parents, 7 kids - making our twice-weekly jaunt to church in a VW bug. Granted, I was at most a toddler, which put my oldest three siblings between 11 and 14 years old. I’m sure it helped that none of us were above average height for our age. And child car seats weren’t yet invented. Actually, I’m not even sure seatbelts were de riguer features at that point in history; there certainly wasn’t a buckle-up law. But, stacked in as tight as we were, it was pretty unlikely we could shift much in any direction. Odds were higher that any potential injury would come from a secretive outbreak of sibling spite - say, a discreet pinch to the nearest leg, leaving the perpetrator undetected by parental eyes and the victim unwilling to rock the boat over a mere pinch. Obviously, the Rolling Stones were long past such childhood pettiness when they sang of getting no satisfaction.