My last few columns
have been a bit on the heavy side dealing with race, politics, and the American
flag. Based on their tone I’m sure a few of you might even think I’m
Un-American, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. That’s why in this
column I’m writing about that quintessential All-American experience, the
family road-trip.
My family emigrated from South
America to the U.S. for the second time in 1963 and we settled in Topeka, KA.
My parents bought a small house in a new sub-division and my dad worked at a
Psychiatric Hospital. Even though my parents didn’t speak “good English”, us
kids had no problems fitting in. We walked to school, road our bikes around the
neighborhood, went to the drug store for soda’s and comics, went out for pizza,
all that good stuff. We were living the American dream so why not take it to
the next level.
We started off small, taking a drive
to Missouri for a two week vacation in at an old lake resort somewhere in the
Ozarks. I was 7 or 8 years old and of what I can remember, it was the best time
of my life to that point. I got to go fishing, swimming, water skiing, playing
in the sand and out in the woods. I did all those great American kid things but
what I remember the most and what is actually bringing tears of joy to me as I
think back is DANCING.
I remember that in the evening after it got dark the
teenagers and young adults brought out their musical instruments, lit bonfires,
(probably drank booze) and had a dance party. This was the mid-sixties and I
vividly remember dancing the jerk to Louie Louie as carefree as a kid can be.
That was before I became self-conscious of my weight and looks, I was dancing
like a little crazy man, laughing, sweating, jumping around and having the time
of my young life.
With that trip being a success my parents started planning
the real road-trip. Doing research on the trip we took back then I truly
believe that my parents and my father in particular must have been insane
optimists. I’m not sure at what point my father turned into the dark pessimist
I knew most of my life, but back then, wow.
The trip they planned was five kids’ ages 5 ½ to 12 and 2
adults in a 1966 Dodge Dart going from Topeka to Manzanillo, Mexico, a little
over 1700 miles one way, was that crazy or what?
I don’t remember any of the details of the drive itself other
than really having to pee a couple of times and my dad not wanting to stop. My
mom says that my little sister spent most of the trip on the floor under her
feet and that the rest of us took turns riding in the middle up front. Since we
didn’t wear seatbelts back then we could easily move around and climb over each
other whenever we wanted.
At the small hotel on the coast, I remember having tropical
fruit in the mornings for breakfast as the Iguanas sunned themselves on the
rocks next to us. I also remember not going in the ocean because right next to
the hotel the locals were fishing for small tiger sharks. What I remember most
about that part of the trip was tasting a bean tostada for the first time in my
life, it was so good.
Also staying at our hotel were some Archaeology students who
were collecting artifacts from where a new road was being built. We went out
with them one day but didn’t find much and on the way back to the car my
parents were approached by some of the construction workers who sold them a bag
of artifacts off the back of their truck for $10, score it was like winning the
lottery. After that we headed back to Kansas stopping in Mexico City to see the
Aztec Sun Stone at a museum and to visit the pyramids.
So that was our last big family road trip if you don’t count
driving from Kansas to Michigan when we moved there in 68. When my parents
divorced in 1974 they split up the Mexican artifacts and my mom kept hers in a
display case for when she was ready to sell them and retire.
A few years ago she got her chance and sent pictures of them
to a museum that was looking for Pre-Colombian art; they came back with a
whopping value of $25. So kind of like Humphrey Bogart said in the Maltese
Falcon, road-trips “the stuff that dreams are made of”.
To view the column in it's original form go to page 17 of the following link. Winters Express 8/4/16
