Jack and Marge Leonard, two Irish Catholics from the same Jersey neighborhood married 48 hours after Jack proposed, "...he was shipping out, why wait...?" When the War ended and Jack returned they settled into making babies, adding four boy Boomers to the final tally. Fast forward to the present day. Son #2, Mike, the father of four 20-somethings of his own, wakes up in the middle of the night. In a dream he saw himself driving an RV. The plan is hatched. Scoop up his parents in Arizona, and drive cross country to Chicago for the birth of their first great-grandchild.
The pilgrimage began calmly enough. Less than a half hour in, daughter-in-law Margarita 'beached' the Winnebago on a concrete gas pump island in Mesa, AZ. Marge, 82 years feisty, with a "...ph.D in pessimism..." thought well that's the end! And Jack, "...the Patron Saint of hope..." assured his bride of 60 years, nobody died.
Like the travelers in Canterbury Tales with miles to go and hours to kill, the Leonards tell stories to pass the time. The Ride of Our Lives takes you on a journey through time, back to the 50s and beyond when we made up our own games, and the neighborhood was 'teeming with kids', innocence and mischief. Only a decade before, Jack, skippering a small escort ship in the Atlantic, was forced to leave a foundering sister ship behind. "Those were the rules. A convoy stops for nothing... about a half hour later... we heard a boom. A German sub got them with a torpedo."
Three generations packed into a pair of rented RVs. In the middle there is Mike, more instigator than referee. A gifted raconteur blessed with the timing of a stand up comedian, he maneuvers the narrative back and forth through time with ease and logic. You feel like you are in the Weasely family's enchanted flying car soaring above the 20th Century American landscape.
The Ride of Our Lives is life affirming, alternately hysterical and poignant; rich in heart and humor with only one fault. It is almost too rich. Two-thirds of the way into the book, you feel like you have eaten too much chocolate. But it is a good feeling.
