Road Trips

I think my Dad was hardly ever out of his car. Every day He drove back and forth from Massapequa, Long Island, to Brooklyn, where he was a cashier at Rheingold Breweries. And he loved to eat at White Tower which was one of the first fast food restaurants. But the highlight was that it was a drive-in. The car hop would come running with your tray brimming full of juicy hamburgers and big thick french fries. So it was no wonder that when he got his two weeks vacation we were on the road again.
It wasn’t a leisurely drive through the country though. My father was on the New York thruway and traveling at top speeds. I think the speed limit was 75 mph but I would watch in amazement as the speedometer edged up over 100. This was before there were seat belts in cars too. You could only hope you would be thrown clear of the car if you were in an accident.
My sister and I would always try to get him to pull into the rest stops with restaurants and gift shops. It was a real art to make him stop. You had to watch for signs that said when the next rest stop was coming up. But you had to make sure it was one with a restaurant and not just a bathroom. Then about two miles before the rest stop, you had to say that you had to go to the bathroom. It was better if more then one person had to go. And you never knew until the last minute if you had been successful because he never showed any sign of slowing down. You would be speeding along and then suddenly he would throw on the blinker and fly off the thruway and down the exit ramp. Usually we would get the burgers and fries and run back to the car and off we went again. In those year it was considered messy to leave your trash in the car. So the natural place was out of the window onto the side of the highway. It was the accepted trash receptacle. The Lady Bird Johnson made us beautify the highways by putting our trash in a waste basket. She also made them take down all those beautiful billboards that kept us amused on long road trips. No more serial Burma Shave signs. No more signs advertising the biggest ball of twine.
Often we would go up to the Catskills to visit my cousins who lived in Cairo. This town was so small it didn’t even have one horse. Main street consisted of an A&P grocery store, a Five and Dime and an old movie theater that was probably still playing “Birth of a Nation” on a hand cranked projector. We would go to the Catskill Game Farm and feed the deer with baby bottles. We gave the raccoons graham crackers, but they insisted on washing them and they dissolved before they could eat them. Some times we would drive up to Cooperstown to see the Baseball Hall of Fame, or Fort Ticonderoga where we all had our pictures taken sitting on top of cannons. Another time we went to Hershey Pennsylvania and took the tour of the chocolate factory with its mammoth vats of swirling chocolate, and the Corning glass works where we watched how they blew glass. I don’t know if my parents where trying to educate us or these stops were just an excuse to drive hundreds of miles
Normally at home , we didn’t eat out very often. But on vacation we ate dinner out at a restaurant. I remember ordering tomato juice with dinner and the glass came on a little plate with a slice of lemon on the side. I thought this was so sophisticated.
I still like taking road trips. I usually don’t take the thruway though. I like to stop and see the giant Duck building on the side of the road or the biggest Ball of twine. I like to eat the fried Catfish and hush puppies along the way.

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