Memphis was our home of record and we moved around a lot, travelling to and from Navy and Marine bases so much my sister and I
spent our childhood in the back seat of a Rambler station wagon counting telephone poles as they flew by and arguing over whose turn it was to request a bathroom stop. Once in forward motion, Dad didn't like to slow down for
inconsequential things such as bathroom trips. He was too, well, driven. To reduce stops, we always traveled with a survival kit. Mom would pack boiled eggs and Dad draped a canvas bag full of water on the hood
ornament. The force of the air was supposed to keep the water cold. Dad used to say it was there in case we broke down in a desert. I don't think this occurred because I can't remember ever drinking that water. But I do remember
using the coffee can, which was Dad's idea of a portable potty. I won't go into the logistics, but I will tell you there were a few memorable misses on those journeys.
Our trips took place in the days before seatbelts and
we'd bounce around like kernels of popped corn. We used to pass time by reading but discovered a proclivity for motion sickness, accentuated by reading. After we threw up a few times, Dad declared books off limits and made us sit
and listen to the radio playing scratchy versions of "Wolverton Mountain".
My sister and I developed quite a repertoire of songs, growing particularly adept at Mitch Miller numbers. We sang , "Yes, We Have No
Bananas" over and over. Dad never seemed to notice, though, he was too busy watching out for skunks and highway patrolmen. He was trying to avoid both species.
Dad regularly held meetings with law enforcement officers
in states in which we traveled. These spontaneous meetings didn't necessarily end happily since he firmly believed the highways were man's last frontier. But no matter how many times he was stopped, he never slowed down. We always
drove "straight through" everywhere we went.
Dad liked to leave at about two in the morning, so my sister and I would doze on a pallet spread in the back of the car. On occasion my parents would wake us to point out
some landmark. We'd sit up, bleary-eyed and drunk with sleep, while we zipped past a building or natural wonder. We never really knew what we were seeing because we went by it so fast we never saw it. And it was in this manner we
traveled the country. We sped through the Salt Flats and most of the national parks. We zoomed by lighthouses and historical homes. We screeched past monuments and battlegrounds, never stopping.
"Look, the Mormon Tabernacle!" Mom would yell and we would crane our necks.
"There's the state capitol building," Dad would point out as we whizzed by.
"We're near Kitty Hawk and the ocean," she'd say. "Can you smell the salt air?"
And we'd obediently hang our heads out the windows and sniff. Dad rarely took time to look at the wonders we passed through. He was too
busy dodging those skunks and making the acquaintance of those patrolman And if he'd happened upon a bed of roses in his travels, no doubt he wouldn't have stopped along the way to pick them.
But he
certainly would have yelled as we passed at lightening speed, "Hey girls, there's a bed of roses over there. Can you smell them?"
