Stuff My Dad Taught Me

A Father's Day post a little late.

“Those things were already worth the money,” I heard my dad chuckle in undertones to my mom. We were about half-way to Indiana, with maybe 4 hours to go. After that stop at the cousins, the trip would be extended to Wisconsin to see the grandparents and aunts and uncles there as well. It was going to be a lot of hours in a Caprice Classic station wagon. Preparing for the trip, my dad had made a stop at Radio Shack and bought two battery operated games. One was baseball, where you tried to hit the button that would swing a tiny pixillated bat just at the moment that the ball was pitched over the virtual plate. The better you got at it, the faster the pitches came until you inevitably struck out. The other game was maybe Tetris or an early version of it. We also had a used PacMan from a yard sale. There were not quite enough games to reach around to all four of us, but we devised a rotation system that worked well. When you flunked a level, you had to give it to the next person, unless of course, they were still going strong with whatever they were playing. I don’t know how my parents tolerated the beeping noises that were crucial cues in hitting higher levels of play, especially when the beeps for the pitches came fast and frantic.

We also took books along to entertain us, and dolls with their bags of clothes, and some games with tiny magnetic pieces. There was very little space for our feet in the back seat. Fortunately there was a large cargo area where we could spread out. Sometimes the luggage was strapped on top of the car so that we had more space in the back. I recall Kenny sitting at the back window when he got bored, pumping his arms at the semi-trucks to get them to honk at us, his tow-headed flop of hair bouncing with every pump. There was a cheer whenever a trucker noticed him and pulled on his airhorn.

We weren’t allowed to have radios in our vehicles in that particular church setting, so my dad had wired up a cassette player to the car speakers and set it into the space where the radio had been. We listed to a’cappella music on tape for hours and hours, flipping our favorite ones over repeatedly and humming along to the songs. We liked the Miller Four and the Yoder Family. For rambunctious moods, there was the Schwartz Family. The Mountain Anthems were soothing, and the Gospel Express tapes had the latest songs.

My dad would pore over the map, mark along the routes he wanted to take, and we would set out in full assurance that we would eventually get there. For a man who drove with a horse and buggy or a tractor until he was in his mid-thirties, getting a car was an invitation to explore the far horizon. My mom never drove on long trips, but sometimes she held the atlas and helped navigate through the cities. I rarely heard my parents fuss at each other, but there were a few times that things got a little edgy when we were driving through Chicago.

Every few hours we stopped for gas and snacks and to stretch our legs. It was on one such trip that we discovered the wonder that is string cheese. If you only pinched the tiniest bit at the top and pulled on it, you could make your cheese stick last for a very long time. We got to eat Pringles too, because of the can keeping them from getting squished. My dad loved Easy Cheese to squirt onto Ritz crackers. He would spiral it up so high it almost fell over, then pop the whole thing in his mouth so there were no crumbs. We were allowed to drink pop when we traveled, and we became familiar with a wide range of service station bathrooms. The best were the rest areas that had a hot drinks vending machine where a paper cup dropped down and a dispenser mixed chocolate mix with hot water so that could you sip terrible hot chocolate and need another bathroom pretty soon.

I doubt that my dad bothered to philosophize about it, but his motto seemed to be that it was more about the journey than the destination. For sure it didn’t have to happen as fast as possible, a concept that is foreign in our era of ETA’s and trying to make it a few minutes faster than Google says. How many zoos are there in big cities between Pennsylvania and the relatives? I don’t know, but we hit quite a few of them, and we got the souvenir squished pennies or molded plastic gorillas to prove it. Once we went to Six Flags in Saint Louis on our way to Wisconsin or maybe Kentucky. I’m not sure how that trip looped through Missouri, but we apparently had time. So what if we hit road construction or long delays because of accidents ahead? One never knew quite what was going on in those pre-GPS days. If it got too late, we’d exit and look for the cheapest motel with a neon vacancy sign flickering. Bonus points if there were outdoor entrances to the rooms so that the clerk never had to see how many people entered the room. Double bonus points if there was an ultra-chlorinated pool for the folks who had excess energy from their hours in a station wagon.

If we had an actual deadline, like a family wedding, we drove at night, without all the stops. All of us took our pillows and blankets and whatever else we needed to be comfortable. My dad just drove and drove and when we woke up, we were there!

When we stopped to eat, we went to places like Shoney’s with a breakfast buffet, or Eat’n Park where there were kids’ menus and free smiley cookies. If there was a claw machine with stuffed animals in the entrance, we always had a try. Only occasionally would he give up in disgust when a machine had an especially insipid claw, or if the vendor had stuffed the goods in so tightly that it was impossible to get them out of the pack. Once the machine had been recently restocked, and my dad just scraped the claw over the top of the pile, trying to rake out a few toys on one pass. He kept inserting quarters until all four of us kids had a new stuffed animal, plus some to give to our friends. My mom was embarrassed and went out to the car, but we thought it was a hoot.

If there was someone stopped along the highway, we often pulled over to see if they needed help. It could be a flat tire, or out of gas, or engine trouble- it didn’t matter. As long as my dad could help, he did. I think my parents hit some sort of agreement about hitchhikers after that one really strange one who sat up front while Mom joined us kids in the back.

Did we ever fight? What kind of a question is that? It was tight and the way was far. Were we always delighted with whatever detour we were taking? Nope. I remember having a ‘tude the whole way through the Cleveland Zoo because I wanted to get to the cousins sooner rather than later and it was hot. There was also an epic moment when we were almost to the Kentucky grandpa’s farm, but my dad swung the station wagon into the parking lot of the Health Department. He explained that we needed immunization boosters and this was our former hometown where all our records were. There was an outraged protest, but we couldn’t really get to the farm by ourselves. As soon as we had gotten our shots, we headed on to Grandpa’s.

It was a different world back then, but most grown people still hurried along to the next thing just like they do today. We took our time, and we explored whatever interesting thread unravelled on the open road, fueled by curious wonder. I have a sneaking suspicion that many of the things he did for us children were just as interesting for him as they were for us. And that’s how my dad unlocked the secret for how to travel with youngsters.

Kenny and his friend Motz working on the bike that he painted and fixed on repeat. The old Caprice Classic in the background.