Summer road trips are among the most cherished memories of my childhood. To be honest, I can't even remember all of the destinations, but my father had a knack for making the journey an adventure. And that is saying a lot when you consider these road trips involved squeezing six or seven children and one or two adults into a station wagon, likely one that lacked air conditioning, to travel hundreds of miles a day, sometimes for days on end. I used to channel my father when I'd take my own children up to Oregon and Washington, or down to Disneyland, Monterey, anywhere we chose to drive rather than fly. But it was different. We had air conditioning. a smaller crew, a roomy SUV most of the time if not a rental car, and rather than an AM radio trying to catch a local station, we had XM or CDs or we used Bluetooth. And although I never bought a vehicle fitted with video, sometimes the kids would have a hand held DVD player or they'd individually plug in to their electronic devices to entertain themselves. Only when they were very small did we engage in sing alongs and play games with license plates, or was I subjected to their energetic games of "Slug Bug". We also did not have specific places we always stopped at along the way like my father did, as we don't really favor roadside chain restaurants, and if we did, once the kids saw an In N Out sign there was no re-directing them.
My father knew his chains. Howard Johnson's (the restaurant, not just the hotels) for the vanilla ice cream and wide orange booths. Ditto Carnation outlets in California. And when we really hit the open road he was a devotee of Stuckey's, and it wasn't a road trip for him if he didn't get a nice pecan roll once a day. To this day I don't remember what else they served at Stuckey's although I have memories of the smell of wax paper wrapped around white bread sandwiches and of my face peering over a formica topped table as my sisters and I huddled eating tuna fish, potato chips and ice cold milk. I even remember being in the way back of our bronze colored 1965 Plymouth Valiant wagon probably in 1970, and having my older sister Bridget talk me into making faces at the people in the car behind us because we were never going to see them again. Bridgey leaned up close to the rear window as we rolled along and stuck one finger up inside her upper lip to pull it at the right side and the other pinned her nose back so it looked like a pig's snout, and she began to squeal at the people tailgating us in a large Buick sedan. Our car was filled with noise and chatter, the distant scratchy hum of the radio at the front of the car playing "I Think I Love You" or Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky" (because those two songs played more than any other songs on AM radio that summer and we would hear them each four or five times a day) as my oldest sister fumbled with the radio dial trying to hold it at the place where there was no static; the girls in the middle seat were chattering away about the sights and sounds of Yosemite we'd just experienced while the baby dozed in her car seat, her stomach filled inadvertently with sour formula as we'd neglected to put enough ice in the ice chest. Soon enough she'd begin to explode and projectile vomit - but that was an adventure for much later in the day. With all of that cacophony about us I felt safe in joining Bridgey in her antics and made faces and sounds myself, pressing my face right up against the rear windshield. No sooner had I done this, assured of my anonymity by the long miles we'd yet to travel that day, when my father began to slow the car to exit the freeway, and the Buick behind us did likewise.
We pulled into the parking lot of a Stuckey's somewhere in Nevada as we were making our way east to Carson City from Yosemite and would then head to my grandparents house in Cedar Flat at Lake Tahoe. I remember the sound of my father's car wheels on the loose gravel in the Stuckey's parking lot, and of the larger tires of the Buick as it skirted past us to another parking spot. I remained low in the way back seat as everyone began to exit the car, and as the girls filed out of the middle seat I slipped over the back of the way back seat to come out one of their doors, certain the people in that other car were going to come after my sister and me as we exited from the back of our car for how rude we'd been. Which would not make my father happy. He and my mother were very big on good manners and graciousness. As I rolled along the middle seat of the car toward the passenger side door, I picked up my little sister's red sweater and squeezed into it, hoping to further disguise myself. Bridgey fearlessly, exited the car once my father opened up the back door.
We entered Stuckey's without incident though, and I didn't recognize anyone in the small establishment as being the occupants of the Buick. My father ordered us all to 'stretch our legs' in the parking lot and take any necessary bathroom breaks before joining him at the table. He was carrying the baby, who was sound asleep, but a little gassy, and folded her into a high chair. That may be the day we had the tuna fish sandwiches and milk, but maybe not. It was late afternoon and we were all tired as I don't remember how many days we'd been in Yosemite, but I knew we'd started our morning there with a hike through the meadow, and then we'd had the long drive. My two oldest sisters, who were teenagers, were trying to look like they weren't with the rest of us, and once the meal was over and my father handed them the keys to the car to get us all settled while he used the restroom before heading out again, they tried to become invisible. The oldest sat low in the front seat, the second oldest was directly behind her in the middle seat, also riding low. Bridgey and I were joined by my younger sister in the way back for this leg of the trip as the ice chest was now riding up front, newly stocked with a few Shasta colas. It was hot and we were sticky and sweaty a few minutes after getting into the car. The windows were rolled down but it was probably 90 degrees out. The wait for my father's return from the men's room seemed interminable.
Up front my oldest sister was getting annoyed, complaining about the length of my father's bathroom stay and that people were certainly noticing it was taking him so long. She wanted us to remind him to cut back on the pecan rolls, which were obviously binding him up a bit. The second oldest wondered how anyone could humanly manage to stay this long in a Stuckey's restroom, and she advised he must be breathing through his mouth while in there because she didn't think they cleaned them as often as they should (note: our experience was only of the ladies' room, so we could only imagine how shabby the men's room was). None of us considered our father's comfort. He worked all year long as a teacher, and then during the summer break he taught both gymnastic camp (which we attended) and summer school. Even during the school year he spent at least one weekend day working in his cigar store to augment the family income, and he seldom missed a volleyball game or Father-Daughter Dance, or school play of ours. Then, in the two weeks or so he actually had off every summer, it was into the wagon with the kids to hit the road. And always he was in good humor, singing along to the radio, or when there was no reception, leading us all in singing "Ramblin' Rose" or "How Much is That Doggy in the Window", or telling us jokes or making his painful puns based on our snippets of conversation.
No, mostly to us he was the salt and pepper crew cut and 17 inch neck sticking out from one of his short-sleeved sports shirts that we observed from the shoulders up at his back as he led us down the highway. So, we were not so much relieved as just irritated when he finally emerged from Stuckey's, his eyes uncharacteristically reddened as if with tears, as he slid back into the driver's seat. He took the keys from my oldest sister and then took a deep breath, not putting the key in the ignition, despite the fact he too must have been sweltering. Nobody asked him what was wrong, but one of my sisters, asked him to please start the car, that he had been in the bathroom forever and she just wanted to get on the road already.
He turned around and looked at as many of us as he could take in from that perch. I could see even from the way back that he had been crying, which seemed impossible. At that point in my life I had never seen him cry at all. But, as he looked at us all his eyes welled up again a little, and then finally his face broke out into a smile and he chuckled to himself. "Do you know what happened to me?" He asked. Everyone shook their heads and some began to look away from him out the window.
He didn't have to tell us anything. What went on in that men's room somewhere outside Carson City, Nevada, was his own darn business. But, he did tell us. You see, apparently those pecan rolls had been a little binding, and his fortysomething digestive system had seized up on him at some point. He must have been bearing down a little, his eyes shut tightly. The bathrooms in Stuckey's were on timers, and he'd been in there a while and was all by himself at that point in one of the two stalls opposite the small row of urinals. Seems that while his eyes were pressed closed the timer had run out. He got through whatever impasse his bowels had been posing and opened his eyes, and the place was pitch black. For a moment he thought he'd gone blind. You heard me, he thought he'd gone blind. He was sitting on a toilet somewhere in Nevada and his seven daughters were crowded into a Plymouth station wagon out in the parking lot, and he was suddenly quite blind. He was at an utter loss. How was he going to get us out of here? How was he going to go on with his life and provide for us all? Who could he call if he could find a payphone? And how to explain spontaneous blindness caused by straining too much? All of these terrible thoughts were swirling in his head as he tried to make sense of things sitting in the darkness for an interminable moment before another traveler felt the need to answer nature's call and came swooping into the men's room, turning the timer over and filling the room with God's own light. That was when the tears began to flow.
As always, my father got no sympathy, just groaning from all about the car and insistent pleas to just start the engine and get us out of here. I am certain had the darkness gone on a few more seconds his eyes would have begun to adjust and he would have seen the outlines of his hands, of the stall and recognized the situation for what it was. He was an incredibly intelligent man. But in that moment on day whatever of a long summer road trip, after getting seven children up and out in the morning and hiking with us and giving us the history of whatever meadow we were passing through, after feeding us all lunch and getting just a few seconds to collect himself in the privacy of an ill-maintained public restroom - he had been filled with panic and shame and a moment of desperation. And in the next moment he'd been able to laugh at himself, and invite us all to do the same. That's who he was.
No comments:
Post a Comment