Hit the Road Jack

Holiday ro-oh-oh-oh…d! Tis the season of road trips. I was lucky to have one per summer growing up. My mom is from LA; specifically Norwalk but as you know for us Far Nor Cal residents, anything south of SF is LA.

My parents moved to Cottonwood from LA when I was 5. Since my grandparents were still in Norwalk that meant that until Grandpa retired from Bender Machine Shop, my mom would load Josh and I in the family truckster each summer to see them.

My mom is a strong independent human so it was nothing for her to load up 2 kids by herself and head south for 12 hours. Remember this was not long after women were granted the privilege to vote so a solo trip, this was a big deal. Okay, it was a few decades after suffrage, but still impressive. There were no cell phones or GPS, vulernability was real. But nothing would stop her from getting down to see her folks.

It’s weird that when I think back to those trips, I don’t remember hours and hours of driving. Maybe she implemented something like I landed on when taking my boys on a very long trip; give them a mountain dew and a video game the night before. When they’d stay up till o’dark thirty, they’d sleep quite a ways on whatever adventure they were being taken on. Maybe we were “teething” and had “medicine” (kidding…I think).

But I do remember parts of the trips though. There was music. Specifically Reader’s digest compilations. The first trips I remember, the Reader’s Digest 8 tracks played in the caprice classic brown station wagon with the vinyl “wood paneling” on the sides. I’ve spent time as a grown up trying to find lists of those songs so I could make my own playlist of the gold that would entertain as we got closer to grandparents. The songs evoke warm fuzzy feeling because they meant we were nearing adventures at Disneyland or whatever other place we were scheduled to be still spoiled.

Songs I can remember for sure include “Big Bad John,” “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” and “Hit the Road Jack.” Every so often I’ll hear a song that was on those 8 tracks and be instantly transported back in time. I can almost smell the churros and dole whip.

While most of the trip was a blur, I distinctly remember mom eagerly trying to find Buttonwillow to get her Orange Julius fix. I don’t know how many of the attempts to hit Buttonwillow actually resulted in landing in that exact right town, but I do remember those Juliuses(?) Juli(?). There was nothing like them any where near home. It was like I’d moved to a whole other country. A fancy country that smelled like oranges (and perhaps cattle if we missed Buttonwillow by a lot).

The next consistently memorable marker of these adventures was The Grapevine. There would be praying out loud to whichever saint was pressed in plastic and affixed to the dash. My mom would pat above the radio and encourage the car to behave well, “C’mon Betsy. You can do it. No breakdowns.” (If the car’s name wasn’t Betsy, it should have been). While it may sound like we were traveling in a jalopy, we weren’t. My mom’s always had cars you can count on. But that didn’t take away the fear. I guess as a kid, she saw pretty decent wipeouts there. I remember that I would panic too and offer the car version of clapping when a plane lands when we got to the other side. “Gawd! It’s so good to still be alive!”

We’d then run in to traffic. I’d peer in all the other cars expecting to see a movie star. I never did. But that didn’t stop me from looking next summer. You never know; maybe Harrison Ford would just be out on The 5 in a nice maroon CVCC or a Monte Carlo.

Our stays in Norwalk were always filled with love. Grammy would excitedly show us the new cacti she’d added googly eyes to. Grandpa would capitalize on our visit by making Grammy get ice cream and cookies that he liked more than us. I would get to see this crazy thing called MTV on something wild called “cable tv.” Just good times all around.

I would come back to Cottonwood after a week as though I’d just returned from a semester studied abroad in Paris. I’d regale with tales of places like In-N-Out burger or Medieval Times.

It’s a lot of work to take kids on a big trip. I’m very thankful that my family made it look easy. For me, it built memories that I can still enjoy today and made me unafraid to take adventures with my boys. If you’re making the road trip, enjoy the planning, enjoy the drive, and know that they won’t remember stopping every 25 minutes to pee, they’ll remember the music and that you made it happen.

Thanks for reading!