I grew up in the late 1960s early 1970s in Virginia Beach, Virginia. My entire family is originally from the coast of Maine. Every summer the seven of us would pile into the station wagon and take a meticulously planned trip to Maine. Let me clarify that for ya….my two younger brothers, my parents, and our two dogs, armed with maps, coolers, and luggage pulling a pop-up camper. We would drive 16 hours in a station wagon to my grandmother’s house in Boothbay Harbor Maine. Fun, fun, car sickness, fun. I, being the only girl, had to sit in the middle, my feet on the hump, to separate my brothers so no one was killed. I lived for the Ho-Jo ice cream stops so I could get out and walk around for a few minutes until we had to hurry back in the car because we needed to make good time! Good time? What the heck difference would another five minutes of freedom make? I only asked that question one time. The question was followed by a half hour explanation of rush hour time in Connecticut and how we would be stuck in traffic, blah, blah…why did I open my big mouth, blah.
My mom planned that trip all year long. We had special matching red, white, and blue outfits for the family reunion. We had a snack schedule. My mom planned snacks the way she cooked….badly. Dry crackers, canned ginger ale, pretzels, bananas, and wintergreen mints. I hate wintergreen mints to this day because she gave them to me when I got car sick. Absolutely no chocolate because it would upset our stomachs! I don’t know about you but I can’t travel without chocolate, coffee, and Duncan donuts! Not my mom! No way were we going to get anything good to eat except for a vanilla Ho-Jo cone. Yes, I said vanilla! Chocolate is way too exotic! It tastes too good and in my mom’s mind that means it must be bad! It was the trip from hell, but the destination made it worth the agony of the car ride....sorta.
My brothers were like Oscar and Felix. Jon was tall, quiet (AKA, sneaky) athletically gifted, very neat and organized, and annoyed that he even had a family to cause his constant embarrassment. My youngest brother Jeff was (and still is) short, stocky, loud, hyperactive, quick witted, opinionated…and he also thinks everything he does is funny. I love my brothers, just not on a car trip.
Jon was a very shy child who wore his shirts buttoned up to his neck and did not have much to say….until he reached puberty. He is now one of the funniest people on the planet, but back then he was very quiet compared to Jeff and I. He was what one might call “an observer.” Jon kinda faded into the walls and quietly watched the rest of my crazy family throughout most of his childhood. My mom always said to watch out for the quiet ones. She was right.
Jeff was “that kid.” If we heard anything crash in the house or even in a store my mom would snap her head around and ask, “Where’s Jeff?” We all knew he probably had something to do with whatever had broken, turned on, or fallen off of something. Jeff denies it all now but he was one hyperactive little pain in the ass. The fact that he was totally adorable and fun was the only thing that save him from strangulation. He was also amazingly fast and could out run my dad until dad just gave up and said the hell with it. Jeff’s chunky little legs could fly! By the end of the chase we were all laughing at him….all of us except my dad.
On these road trips I had to sit in the middle back seat of our station wagon with my feet on the hump with them for sixteen hours. Jon would quietly press on the back of my dad’s seatbelt and dad would blame it on Jeff. Instead of simply denying it Jeff would start to yell at Jon and I would laugh and then we would all be in trouble. This happened so frequently that you’d think my dad would have caught on, but he was too busy trying not to miss an exit. These were the sixties and seventies. The days when your parents smoked in the car with the windows rolled up. These were the days before cell phones, hand held video games, DVD players and i-pods. Hell, we didn’t even have FM radio! I remember getting all excited when we could hear music as the static faded away as we passed through radio zones. We could tell how close we were getting to certain cities by the radio stations. There was no GPS. There was only a huge messy map with a magic marker tracing the route and my parents fumbling for toll and turnpike money. My dad knew who had overpriced gas and which turnpike rest stops to avoid. We played, “Who can spot a red car…etc.” My mom called it travel bingo. What were my parents thinking? How in the world could they relax? This was the way families vacationed back then. Families didn’t fly anywhere, you took a road trip and you took everyone in the family including the pets. Board the dogs? Are you kidding? We let them ride in the back of the station wagon on beach towels and walked them at rest stops. It was all or nothing.
We had one of those station wagons with the “way back” seat that faced backwards. That was the barf zone. If you know anyone who could ride in a car facing backwards for more than five minutes without puking I want to meet him. That fact alone should let that freak of nature into the space program. “He’s dumb as a post sir, but he rode 16 hours in the “way back” seat and never puked” “Holy Jesus, why didn’t you say so? Sign that man up for the next trip to Jupiter!” To this day I refuse to ride in anyone’s back seat even if it faces forward. Did I mention that I get car sick?
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