Road trip takes me back to my childhood
July 31, 2008
A soft rain falling on I-65 around Decatur has turned into a downpour. Looking out the window of the truck, it could be cold outside. It could be a winter instead of a summer day, except that the leaves are green on the trees and not brown.
It looks cold.
The temperature has gone from the high 80s to the high 70s. Not quite winter.
Since Mark and I met three years ago, we have taken a few road trips. Twice to D.C. Once or twice we went back home to my native Mississippi. Key West last February. Multiple bike rallies.
It has become a means by which we carve out a bit of private time together amidst the craziness of this thing called life. It is often our ONLY alone time. So, while I will miss the girls, I am delighting in the fact that I will not have to hear: “Mama, mama, mama” for 10 days.
For 10 days, I can give mama a rest. Today, I can be “baby.”
Road trips and summer vacations certainly take me back to my childhood. My dad took us on great family vacations. We always had a date and a destination set and oh, how my brother and I looked forward to a respite from our summer cotton chopping duties.
We used to lean on our hoes in the field, drink from the water cooler, and say, “Just think …. This time next week, we will be on vacation.”
My father rarely left the farm, and no, we didn’t have cows. Daddy loved to work and only when the cotton was laid by in late July or early August did we ever leave it.
Usually we left in the middle of the night. To my way of thinking some 40 years later, it seems like it was midnightish when we left. I imagine it was closer to 5 a.m., but I knew little more than it was pitch black outside and finally, finally, we were getting away from the Mississippi Delta. Away from the mosquitoes and the suffocating humidity. Away from what was everyday life on a boring farm.
We were off to new adventures in Colorado, New Mexico, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas or Mexico, where we would eat in real restaurants and stay in motels with swimming pools.
Sometimes, instead of stopping along the way, Mama whipped out the Wonder bread from a big grocery bag in the front seat. She spread the slices of white bread thick with mayonnaise and slapped a piece of liver cheese on top.
“We won’t be stopping for a while kids,” Mama would say as she handed the sandwiches back.
My brother and I would put our little faces to the window and watch as this strange, new place went by.
We just crossed the Tennessee line. Another downpour.
Sturgis: 1,366 miles.
