Still in our pajamas, my sister, Sara, and I had been tucked into the backseat to sleep on makeshift beds Daddy had fashioned from orange crates. Departure time was usually around midnight to avoid the scorching daytime heat; cars in the 1950s didn't have air conditioning.
Nevertheless, dawn brought the persistent question common to children of every generation–Are we there yet?
Travel in those pre-Interstate days moved at the plodding pace characteristic of countless rural towns peppered along two-lane highways.
Without today's high-tech audio/visual options–or even a radio–we fabricated our own entertainment. Sara would shout, "Riddle, Riddle, Marie! I see something that you don't see, and it's a …!" Accepting her challenge, my guesses would begin. License plate and alphabet games also erased some of the monotony of miles click-click-clicking under the tires. So did counting cows.
And should those activities lapse into boredom, a vigorous round of "Red Truck No Pinch Back" (where whoever spotted a red truck would pinch the other) eventually invoked motherly intervention.
Scant reading material–Boy's Life and Mad Magazine–whittled extra minutes here and there.
But the ultimate thrill, now dangerous I realize, required casting paper cups attached to long strings out the open windows. Who could reel out the most line and still keep his cup aloft?
The only time I recall our buying prepared food was for a "country breakfast" somewhere deep in Alabama. I recognized grits but puzzled over the sprig of unfamiliar "green stuff" on my plate. Parsley, Mother explained, added color and decoration; I didn't have to eat it. My 12-year-old intellect never grasped the benefit.
Near mealtimes we'd hunt for a clean roadside park (virtually extinct now) with a shady picnic table. With slices of "lunch meat," homegrown tomatoes and mayonnaise from the cooler, Mother slapped together tasty sandwiches we washed down with cool water from a plastic jug. Then we'd set off again, probably to seek out a service station (likewise extinct) with, if possible, public restrooms.
Our little Kodak Brownie camera occasionally compromised my well being. In the Great Smoky Mountains I stretched precariously from the car window to photograph a bear I had surreptitiously enticed with tossed bits of food. Not smart. Mother hauled me back to safety with sufficient screams to slow the lumbering bruin.
Then unwilling to pay the requisite dollar for a North Carolina Cherokee in full headdress to officially pose, I dashed through the trading post and furtively snapped his picture on the run. Sara, of course, reminds me of these misadventures; I remember nothing of them.
We seldom stayed at a motel (mom and pop operations back then), but when necessity required it, Daddy sought one with a "AAA Approved" sign. Cleaner and fewer roaches he reasoned.
Today, essentials include chargers for cell phones, laptop computer, digital camera, and PDA–plus stacks of books and magazines. We gravitate to daylight, Interstates, bottled water, organic food, medicines and convenience. Undeniably bland.
Travel then and now: a picture of life where each successive decade erases a swath of the flavor and savor of an unappreciated past.
Copyright 2006 James McAlister
Recent Comments