Stashed under the front seat were our emergency requisitions: blue first-aid kit, red flares, green stainless-steel thermoses (one for hot coffee and one for cold water), white enamel boy and girl potty pots, and, most important, a brown paper bag filled with green grapes and orange chunks of cheddar cheese, our quintessential road snacks.
Before long, the back end of the station wagon looked like the human version of a beaver dam. My father’s repeated requests for rearview-mirror visibility receded to a distant memory. Side mirrors would have to do.
Despite the fact that the back bumper was now hanging perilously close to the driveway, our treasured canoe—a Christmas gift from our grandmother Clara—still had to be hoisted on top of the car. Our mother and father each took an end, and with hefty huffs, heaved it skyward.
For a moment, the monster hung perilously in mid-air. And then, with a couple of good grunts, our parents steadied it and slowly slid it onto the two metal suction racks gripping the top of the station wagon.
There in all its hulking glory sat our long green canoe like a huge snapping turtle straddling a log. Its length spanned the entire vertical extent of the station wagon and then some. The stern blocked off our father’s last hope for light from the back window and the bow dipped over the front hood like said turtle’s beak in a feeding frenzy, splitting the front windshield’s view in two.
Lord help us if we ever came upon anything in the middle of the road.
Checking and readjusting its balance, our father began to lash and whip the canoe to the car roof, zealously using dozens of ingenious knots he had learned when becoming an Eagle Scout. Neither rain, nor hail, nor hurricane-force winds would ever dislodge the canoe from that car. It would take the magic of Houdini—or our father—to untie those knots again, as we later always found out.
By now, it was mid-morning and we children were ready to hit the road. We jumped and twirled and scurried about, checking under beds and behind dressers for forgotten last-minute items to stash in any remaining crevices of the car. Our excitement and energy was at such a fever pitch that we could no longer stand it.
“Let’s go!” we whined at intervals like a broken record player with a bad needle.
Our mother assured us she was almost ready; she just needed to tidy up and we’d be on the road. It would be her worst nightmare if we were all killed in a car crash and a stranger came into her home and found it a mess. Taking a quick look around, we instantly knew, of course, that our already delayed departure time was in deep trouble. Keeping a small, three-bedroom yellow ranch without a basement but filled with seven people free of clutter was no easy task.
And so the cleaning began. In an effort to speed the process, my siblings and I flew into conspirators’ mode, sweeping books and toys under our beds, scooping clothes on the floor into the closets, and sliding the jumble of knickknacks on our dressers into the top drawers. Our mother felt she couldn’t leave without vacuuming, which allowed our father more time to meticulously recheck the perilously overloaded tires and re-tie the knots.
By now, it was well past noon and we were starving. Our departure would have to be delayed further for a quick lunch. Out came peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and tomato soup. Nancy and I, uncharacteristically, readily helped with the dishes while the boys chased each other around outside. Baby Mary sat in the grass and ate dirt.
Our mother would not head Up North until the house was clean. Our great-aunt Mina’s poem about Wake Robin is on the wall of our Illinois kitchen.
At last, our dad began closing and locking all the windows of the house, checked the furnace for unknown reasons, and, finally, announced it was time to get in the car.
With happy whoops, the five of us scrambled to the sagging station wagon as our mother pulled the back door shut, locked it, and dropped the key into her black patent-leather purse. Sporting matching shoes and a linen dress, she liked to travel in style.
Climbing into the driver’s seat, our dad took his first look into the rearview mirror, muttered an oath, and, with a shake of his head, gave up all hope of seeing out the back. Our mother tucked little Mary between them in the front as Nancy, David, Tom, and I made a mad jostle for the window seats in the back. Predictably, a fight broke out.
“I get the window!”
“No, you don’t. You had it last time!”
“Knock it off,” our father ordered. “You can take turns and switch after each stop.”
Grumpily, we complied, not wanting to waste any more time.
“Fasten your seat belts!” Dad commanded.
“Do we have to?” I asked. “It’s too crowded and hot.”
“Fasten your seat belts and lock your doors,” he repeated, leaving no room for argument.
Because cars of that era did not come with back seat belts, our father improvised, as usual, by creating two of his own and bolting them to the car floor. With four kids in the backseat, that meant two of us had to share. Stretching each belt across two bodies in order to snap them shut was no easy task, especially for sweaty, squirming brothers and sisters. Four sardines in a can couldn’t have been any tighter.
I had no clue why we always had to lock our doors. There was no chance in hell we were going to fall out.
At long last, we were ready to go. Like a bunch of Cheshire cats, our forward-facing smiles all but exploded with excitement. Packed to the brim, loaded with seven people, and topped with a cavernous canoe, our station wagon careened out of the driveway like a 1959 version of the Trojan Horse and headed north. A huge grating noise and a blast of sparks from the laden back end ricocheting off a driveway pothole gave us a rousing send off.
It was now past 2:00 in the afternoon, and more than 450 miles stretched before us. From the grip of my backseat snare, I studied my Mickey Mouse watch and figured, if all went well, it would take us about nine hours to get to the cabin. Surely, we’d arrive before midnight.
It never worked out that way.
Act II: So Happy Together
SCENE 1
For a while, all was calm. We rode along in happy contentment, strapped in our shared seat belts, eager to watch the familiar landmarks glide in and out of view.
With the windows rolled down, the sweet smell of sun-warmed cornstalks swept through the car and cooled us with a tepid breeze as the green leaves of the cornfields waved a rustling farewell.
Crossing the railroad tracks of the neighboring town that signaled the start of our journey, we cruised by the familiar turquoise Rexall Drug sign and vintage redbrick storefronts and knew we were really and truly on our way. We were about to trade the searing sun of the humid prairies for the cool shade of the forests.
Hallelujah!
It was time to crack open the Juicy Fruit gum and even share it with a sibling. Out came the secret caches of comic books and candy. We curiously, and with a bit of envy, eyed what the others had brought. Since gum chewing and reading were forbidden in the car due to our father’s distinct dislike of the gum’s sweet smell and our mother’s fervid belief that reading in the car would make us go blind, we had to stealthily and silently unwrap our treasures.
Chewing with our mouths closed was one of our parents’ constant manner mantras, so, for once, we tried to put that rule into practice in an attempt to hide our contraband. Due to our limited supply of gum, we were reluctant to share a whole stick, so with the magnanimity of a king or queen, we broke a piece in half and passed it around. (Our stinginess would later come back to haunt us when we ran out one by one.)
The Veronica and Archie comic books slid out from under a jacket or pillow. We looked over each other’s shoulders, sneakily assessing the colorful pictures and snappy dialogue. Our father loved to drive, our mother to rest, and with little Mary sweetly snuggled between them, the four of us in the backseat silently read and chomped like contented cows chewing their cud and studying the soil. All was well with the world. We proceeded down the road like a happy caravan of traveling gypsies.
Th
en we got hot.
After an hour of blissful peacefulness, the afternoon summer sun began to take its toll and the shared seat belts were no longer a happy hug but a sweaty embrace. We began to stick to one another.
Off came the socks and the shoes, joining the mess of gum wrappers already crumpled on the car floor. Although the word had not yet been coined, our parents were early environmentalists, and we were forbidden to ever throw trash out the windows. Since we were sneaking the gum, we could not very well pass the wrappers to the trash bag in front, and so, guiltily, we tossed the paper remains beneath our seats.
In an outraged effort to shove a hot sibling away, we watched in horror as the gum, by now devoid of flavor, jettisoned out of our mouths and joined the tangle of shoes, socks, and wrappers below. As hard as we looked, we could never locate the gooey gunk until it maddeningly ended up stuck to one of us.
“Get off me!”
“Move over!”
“You smell!”
All of the above became our continual backseat whines.
“Knock it off!” our father commanded.
But the squirming and the sticking and the socking were there to stay. In addition, the dark green canoe perched heavily above us merely trapped more heat in our already packed and stacked station wagon. By now, all seven of us—our parents included—were beginning to squirm and sweat and sigh in the cramped confines of the car. It was all starting to sink in: we were stuck for at least another eight hours.
The initial euphoria of the trip blew out the window in a rush of hot, gum-smelling air as the two-lane highway loomed before us like the yellow-streaked back of a wiggling black snake.
Act III: Trouble Down the Road
SCENE 1
“Sing!” our mother commanded.
Our happy dispositions had evaporated like the heat waves on the blacktop, and we were now five crabby kids crammed in the belted seats of our steamy station wagon as it rolled down the highway.
“I’m happy when I’m hiking along the open trail!” Woody began in her strong soprano voice. “I’m happy when I’m hiking over trail and dale!”
“Come on now! Join in!” she insisted.
“I’m happy when I’m hiking …” we muttered with the enthusiasm of snared fish.
Gradually, the tune caught hold of our spirits and we finished the old scout song with a bit more life in our voices. After all, what else was there to do?
“Ten, twenty, thirty miles, fifty miles a day, hey!”
If it only took that long we’d be in heaven. Alas, we were barely into our northward journey, and hours of travel time loomed ahead. Our secret rations were depleted, Veronica and Archie’s latest escapades were old news, and we had already pulled over twice for little Tom to “upchuck.” Claiming carsickness, he was now happily ensconced in the coveted front seat next to the window.
We backseat riders were still stuck double in a single seat belt with baby Mary as a replacement. Her hard-soled, learning-to-walk shoes kept hitting us in the shins, and as the aroma of her suspected poopy diaper began reaching our noses, we were all the more cross and jealous of the new seating arrangements. Still stuck in the middle, I had yet to snag a window seat.
“Dip, dip, and swing them back, / Flashing like silver!” sang out our mother.
Now squished in the center seat next to my father with only a view of the canoe bow leading her down the highway, it was no wonder Woody chose this song.
“Swift as the wild goose flight, / Dip, dip, and swing. Dip, dip, and swing!”
“Come on! Let’s sing it in a round!” she persisted.
Begrudgingly, Nancy and I mustered up our heroic Girl Scout attitudes and joined in the round.
“Dip, dip and swing ’em back, / Flashing like silver / Swift as the water flows / Dip, dip and swing / Dip, dip and swing.”
As each round ended and the last voice faded out, we focused on the canoe above us, knowing that in not too long a time, it would be flipped back over into the cool, sparkling waters of Big Spider Lake, and we would be paddling the shore looking for real turtles on logs.
Our mood improved.
“Hundred bottles of beer on the wall / A hundred bottles of beer!” one of us mischievously sang out.
Promptly, without any encouragement, we all joined in with gusto. Here was a song we could really get into!
“Take one down, pass it around / Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall!” our voices sang, our loud laughter interrupting the refrain.
This was not one of Woody’s approved scouting songs, and although we thought it was hysterical, we only managed to decrease to ninety-seven bottles of beer on the wall before we were abruptly cut off.
“That’s enough!” she said, annoyed that her singing program had gone suddenly awry.
“Come on, Mom,” we chorused. “It’s just a silly song.”
“No,” she stated. “It’s not allowed. Now, what else can we sing?”
Our answer was silence. In that tense standoff, someone’s stomach growled, and we all realized we were starving again.
“I hungry!” said little Mary.
Our mother’s traditional answer was to pull out the snack bag from under the seat and ration out chunks of cheddar cheese and green grapes. We snatched them up in an attempt to quench our endless hunger. Consequently, there were now smashed grapes and chunks of dried cheese amid the shoe-and-sock-strewn car floor with chewed gum and candy wrappers scattered throughout. It was beginning to look like a dump down there.
Our complaining started up again.
“I’m thirsty!”
“Me, too!”
“I’ve got to go to the bathroom!”
“When are we going to stop?”
“As soon as we find the next filling station,” our father patiently answered. “Keep your shirts on.”
Restlessly, we scanned the horizon for the answer to our prayers; the red, white, and blue crown of the Standard Oil gas station. But instead, only fields of black-and-white Holsteins, faded red barns with fieldstone foundations, and colorful waves of roadside wildflowers stretched out for miles around us.
Suddenly, the whole car began to shake and a persistent thump-thump-thump joined the highway sounds of rushing wind and whistling road like a symphony drum beat gone awry.
“Damn!” cursed my father under his breath.
“What’s wrong?” we asked in quick dismay, wondering if the canoe was about to flip from its suction cups.
“We’ve got a flat tire,” he answered, resignation in his voice.
Not again, I thought to myself.
For once, all voices were hushed and a suspenseful silence filled the car as we anxiously watched our father guide our loaded station wagon expertly off the road onto the gravel shoulder. Coming to a rude halt, the car gave a sighing shutter as the engine shut off. An unaccustomed stillness followed.
Hot dust drifted up around us from the gravel and dirt. New noises of chirping crickets and buzzing bees rang out from the eerie quiet that greeted us through the open windows. Collectively, we sighed.
We were stuck.
“All right,” our dad ordered. “Everyone out and stay away from the road.”
Happy to at last be released from our seat belts, we scrambled to find our shoes and socks in the mix on the floor.
“Darn it!” I hollowed glaring at the nearest sibling. “I’ve got someone’s gum stuck all over my shoe.”
“Find a leaf and wipe it off,” Woody answered. “Nancy, you keep an eye on Mary while I help your father.”
“I think I’m going to upchuck!” Tom announced, eyes wide and face pale.
“Marnie, watch your brother,” Dad ordered.
For once, I hoped my kid brother was faking.
Scrambling out of the car, we gathered near the back end to take a look at the offending tire. There it sat in wrinkled reverie, the black rubber deflated to the rim, the head of a large nail protruding from its worn treads.
“D
amn!” our father muttered again.
Our gazes uniformly shifted slowly upward to the canoe anchoring the back end shut where the spare, of course, was located under all our stuff. Securely knotted to the car like a green bug ensnared in the intricate clutches of a spider’s web, that canoe was not going anywhere fast.
We were going to be here a while.
Act IV: Calling the Cows
SCENE 1
Buzzing mosquitoes attacked immediately. Standing in the hot, late afternoon sun on an empty road miles from nowhere, we stood in shocked silence swatting the stinging pests away.
The spare tire, of course, was not only beneath the gargantuan mountain of luggage in the backend, but the canoe had to be released from its carrier before the back door could swing open to retrieve it.
Gazing at our father’s endless array of complicated canoe knots, we realized they had succumbed to Isaacs’s law of physics: for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction. The buffeting winds that the car had careened into for several hundred miles made all those knots tighter than a sailor’s hitch in a hurricane.
Instinctively, we knew it would take ages to get them all undone. And it did.
Although it was still sunny out and there was not a car in sight, our father, the ever-safety-minded Eagle Scout, retrieved his stash of flares from under the front seat and placed them in the hot tar cracks of the pavement at the front and back of the car.
Fascinated, we kids paid close attention, for this was our favorite part (we’d been down this road before, so to speak). With great fanfare, our father pulled his stainless-steel cigarette lighter out of his pocket, flicked the lid back with a flourish, and ignited the flare wick.
“Stand back!” he ordered, as though an explosion were imminent.
As the small flame took hold, he leaped back like a man who has just thrown a grenade. Sizzling and hissing like a cornered snake, the wick suddenly exploded into a firecracker burst of red sparks.
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