Road Trips
My father drove a 1950 Ford when I was a kid. I remember it because that was also my birth year, the car was blue and apparently our cat liked to sleep under the hood near the warmth and security of the engine block. Ours was not a wealthy family nor was it the era for making long trips unless you were an immigrant coming from the “old country.” Presumable Canada is the new country. My sister once flew in a DC 8 to Montreal, when she was 21, and that was pretty exceptional. I still have a black and white photograph in my album (black pages with photo corners) depicting the whole family, in a very staged picture, gathered round and waving good bye to my sister. It was assumed that since she was going so far, and to a foreign country, and in a plane, she would likely never return. To our collective surprise, she did!
My Dad once drove the family in our blue Ford, with our cat, on a camping trip to New York City. I know that sounds a tad incongruous as I don’t think that KOA even has camp sites in Manhattan. As it was we didn’t actually camp. We stayed in little cabins along the way. This was before the age of motels. In fact I don’t think the word motel was in the lexicon yet. The equivalent were called motor courts. These cabins were little wood structures with few creature comforts, including no heat, no air conditioning, and no insulation, either they were way too hot or way too cold. We did have the camping experience as we often slept in sleeping bags. I think it had to do with my mother’s trust issues with strange bedding in exotic locations like New York.
My dad was a man of few words and preferred not to talk about it, but once in awhile, maybe out of sheer boredom he would point things out to us along the way, usually references to other vehicles or possibly something unusual in the landscape, like, perhaps, a meteorite crater if we happened to pass one.
Since all the roads in America, circa 1950’s, would be considered secondary by today’s standards it was possible to see the environment as you drove slowly by it. It was like walking through your own neighbourhood and noticing for the first time that it was gradually being over run with university students who were systematically bringing down the collective property values of the neighbourhood and it was probably time to move. Something you might very well have been oblivious to had you simply continued to do drive by’s.
On our family road trips we particularly enjoyed Burma-Shave roadside signs, as an art form and as a source of cheap entertainment. Burma-Shave signs were part of the American folklore from the 1920’s right into the 60’s. They advertised Burma Shave brushless shaving cream, but they could have advertised vacations in Kansas, it didn’t really matter because they were so clever and witty, or so we all thought at the time. The signs were usually in groups of six with one to five words on each sign, each sign was spaced about one hundred feet apart. The last sign always said Burma Shave. They were a great distraction to my Father’s narration of the trip. “Hey guys is that another crater up ahead?”
A typical series of signs might have some innocuous reference to family humour. She kissed/ the hairbrush/ by mistake/ she thought it was/ her husband Jake/ Burma-Shave. For weary travelers running out of conversation and jogging along at 50 miles an hour, or less, the Burma Shave signs were a great relief and a wonderful and entertaining distraction.
At times the signs took on a greater social significance:
Drinking Drivers
Nothing worse
They put
The quart
Before the hearse
Burma Shave
By the sixties society had gotten far too sophisticated for the corny low budget roadside ads, by then we all knew that bigger was better and Burma Shave gave way to the 40 foot billboard which enhances the roadsides of America today.
Recently, while driving nervously through Little Portugal in the core of downtown Toronto I couldn’t help but notice a La Senza billboard posted vertically on the side of a very tall brick building advertising lingerie on the body of what must have been a forty foot tall picture of a lanky, but well proportioned, model wearing, well, next to nothing. I quickly had to swerve hard right to avoid an on-coming Street Car Named Desire. As I recovered from my near death experience associated with an amazing adrenaline rush, I thought that Burma Shave signs represented an age of innocence long gone. Times have changed and we must learn to adapt to evolving values and mores, but my god that model was hot!
My sexy-billboard-near-death-adrenaline-experience reminded me of a similar situation in which my nephew got himself into a little fender bender situation while looking away from the road, for no more than 25 seconds, in order to gaze at the wonders of a beautiful young woman walking along the sidewalk with her hip-hugger jeans and belly shirt, with a long bouncing ponytail tucked under her red ball cap. Anyway, what was I saying? I asked my nephew months later about his accident, “Eric was it worth it?”
I was hoping, as a wise uncle, to impart a valuable life lesson through my question. Eric took a good long time to respond. A certain brightness, colour and animation came to his face, as if he was about to part the Red Sea for the children of God, then he slowly replied, Well…she was really pretty!” Thank God he never saw my La Sensa girl. Our roads are no longer safe.
When my dad didn’t want to turn into a certain venue or tourist type attraction, be it an historic site, a view point, or if he chose to miss all the Kodak moments along the way, he would simply say, “Oh, sorry kids was that our turn?” As a child I missed seeing Upper Canada Village, Fort George, Fort Henry, the Parliament Buildings and the Statue of Liberty (while camping in Manhattan) and many other places I will never know, in just that same way. When my Dad wanted to see something he just left.
My dad loved to travel and when he retired he kept busy with his wood working shop. Often he would go to an antique showroom and measure a particular piece of furniture and make a knock off version at home in his shop. When he got restless making knock offs, he would either get into his car or buy a greyhound bus ticket and without saying a word be gone. Secretly, I always thought that he had returned to Fort George, or Fort Henry, the Parliament buildings or to the Statue of Liberty.
Weeks after his departure, with no apparent negative reaction from my mom, I would ask her with some degree of anxiety, “Mom, where’s Dad gone?” My mom, if washing the dishes at the time, would slowly look up and gaze off into the distance through the kitchen window and slowly, as a small hint of a smile spread across her face would simply say, “Was the cat still in the car?” I was a little creeped out because coincidentally or not, the family cat was gone too.
My anxieties were lessened somewhat when, on a regular basis, every three days then 8, then two weeks would go by, and a card would arrive. My Dad, where ever he was in the world, assured us that he was having a good time and wished us well and he would be home soon. Then one day he would be in the kitchen slurping his coffee from a large saucer saying, “Heis, heis heis,” as if nothing had happened. I guess nothing really did.
I decided a couple of things from my Dad’s example, because his life’s lessons were not wasted on me. I would never take my kids camping to Manhattan, I would not buy knock off furniture brands, and I would never take the family cat with me on a road trip.
When my own kids were young I did not take them to Fort Henry, Fort George, the Parliament Buildings or Upper Canada Village. We lived in Alberta and we saw other things.
I sought to be a better parent than my own father and on our family road trips, like most fathers, I taught my kids how to speak Italian and gave them a strong appreciation for opera. In addition, while driving, I would endlessly point out things of interest, “Hey kids is that a meteorite crater up ahead?”
Marty Rempel
Previously published in Northword, Winter 2011
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