Road Trip Party of Five
“Mom, make Greg stop breathing on me,” my sister Gena would say at least a dozen times when we traveled to visit our grandmother in Burlington, North Carolina. Our 1967 Pontiac station wagon was immense and resembled a hearse.
It was the color of wet sand, had a seldom used roof rack and a solid steel dashboard. Its considerable hood could’ve easily doubled as a helipad in the event of emergency. One of its most peculiar features was a third row of seats that faced backwards. This ensured that anyone who sat there would immediately become car sick or pass the time tormenting cars driving behind us.
Or both.
Dad always drove. Mom sat in the passenger seat and made sure our family of five had proper nourishment for the five-hour trip. This typically took the form of pre-made grape Kool-Aid (more tepid than cool), crackers and more crackers. On those rare times when we ate at restaurants, mom used the opportunity to stock up on saltine crackers. Most restaurants back then offered an ample supply which were stacked in small, plastic mesh baskets. Typically, they were for diners who ordered soup or salad. Mom usually just dumped the basket in her purse along with napkins, salt and sugar packets. As a result, the crackers would get crushed in her purse and we’d end up eating cracker dust. My father attempted to put us at ease by saying, “all you’re going to do is eat them.”
Please pass the Kool-Aid.
One would think that a 60’s era station wagon provides ample room, but once we piled in with luggage, food and various levels of dread it made for tight quarters and short tempers. That’s when Gena would complain about my breathing. Or, that I didn’t stay on “my side” which was a pre-designated sliver of a space whose boundary was identified by a faint seam in the seat cushion. Meanwhile, Mike usually lounged in the rear-facing seat reading a copy of Mad Magazine or made faces at other drivers. Once in an attempt to end the bickering between me and my sister, my mom decided to wall us off from each other by stacking Samsonite luggage between us which lasted until the first hard left out of the neighborhood.
My father sang more than he talked; often to popular songs of the 60s like Roger Miller’s King of the Road and Glen Campbell’s Wichita Lineman that crackled though the car’s speaker — singular. Usually he made up his own songs, like the classic and never famous My Blinker Don’t Blink.
Oh, my blinker don’t blink when I turn to the right,
And my lights won’t shine when I’m driving at night
Oh, I rattle and shake as I drive along,
There’s a knock in my motor, somethin’ else gone wrong.
We did what we could to pass the time.
In addition to hoarding saltines, my mom was chief navigator and head of surveillance. She cleverly used the vanity mirror in the passenger side visor to keep tabs on our antics. Her bright green eyes would periodically scan that back of the station wagon and quickly discover any maleficence which were quickly suppressed with a simple but firm “I see you.”
Crossing into North Carolina was a treat. At the time, the welcome center served lemonade in dentist- office-sized dixie cups. It was a nice break from grape Kool-Aid, and it was the opportunity to pick up brochures of places we would never go to. On rare occasions there were flimsy coloring books with outlines of popular tourist attractions like Grandfather Mountain or Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. However, I don’t recall there ever being any crayons which meant our works of art were far from creative or inspiring.
As we got closer to Burlington, North Carolina my father talked more than he sang. He told stories of how his grandfather worked in a mill, how he and his six brothers and sisters used to hunt for arrowheads near the Haw River and that he was born “right there on the porch” of the family home he affectionately called Hope Dale Hill. (That’s why my middle name is Dale.)
Although family trips to visit relatives can be trying, there are lessons to be learned, crackers to eat, songs to be sung and a sister to breath on.
“