Did you play the alphabet game on car trips as a child? I vividly remember someone shouting START and then peering out the window to find the letters on signs. We couldn’t get them off anything that moved, so signage on cars and trucks were not allowed. Who ever found a letter first would smugly announce that they found it … after its origin was no longer in sight.

I remember the letter Q as particularly hard to find. My best hope was a Quaker State Motor Oil sign by a gas station. Then I could get Q and R and S and T and U all at one time!

If I spotted a sign, say we were driving slowly through a small town and it was on my side of the street, I held my announcement and excitement until after no one could look through the back window and still see it.

Competition became a habit on those car trips.

Along with my dad reading Psalm 121 from a Bible in the glove compartment before he turned on the motor to get the trip started.

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.

My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.

He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber…

The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even forevermore.

KJV

To this day, my remaining sister of my original four siblings and I sign off our impending travel emails with Psa 121.

Both my game-playing and faith-forming childhood memories are keepers!