car trips

First an apology to my regular readers for the delay in transmission. I have been very busy trying to put my home and life back together after my vacation of a couple of weeks ago that I haven't have time to write. Also the "busy season" (renamed by upper management of Big P Co "The Revenue Season" -- revenue for whom, I see no extra money in my paycheck) is upon us so exhaustion has prohibited me from writing as well.

Now on to the main event.

Car trips have changed a lot from when I was a kid and also since I've had a kid.

When I go on a long car trip one of the things I am sure to bring is a selection of music. This is in stark contrast to the quiet trips of my youth. My parents divored when I was 4 and I lived with my dad growing up. Before the split my sister and I spent a lot of time with mom, who loved elevator music. Popular songs stripped of their lyrics and played on stringed instruments were the perfect accompaniment to any activity. My father thought that was the kind of music we liked and so he refrained from playing music he liked during those early years when our musical tastes should have been forming. Dad was content to listen to anything we played, never showing any emotion over our selections. I was in college when my father's affection for The Beatles and the Greatful Dead was revealed. I wish I had known earlier.

Before E was born I used to gather a bag of tapes for car trips which had to include "Harry Belafonte Live at Carnegie Hall" recorded in 1952 (a classic) and "Tim Curry's Greatest Hits" (a rare find but so much fun to sing along with. "I do the Rock" is a particular favorite.). I would play Belafonte at night and sing at the top of my lungs pretending the headlights of the cars in the other lane were the footlights of Carnegie Hall. I played that tape on a road trip with E's father once and he was ok with the music but was not too appreciative of my singing.

The musical selections for our vacation this fall included the Wiggles, Ralph's World and Disney's Children's Classics. I had some music for me, Harry was there, but I never got to play it.

Another thing changing the face of road trips is our national obsession with safety. Generally I think it's a good thing but others will disagree saying "if someone wants to die of stupidity let them". Seat belts and child saftey seats are required if you want to be toodling around on the roads these days. Not so when I was a kid.

I remember looking out the windows of our speeding car as we passed farms on the way to my grandmother's house. "Cows! Cows! Moo! Moo! Moo!" was the phrase that pays. I tried to teach E this family tradition on our vacation. Dad told he can still see my sister's ruffled butt wiggling as her nose was pressed against the window to see the bovine wonders in the fields. "You'll never get to see that with E." Well, beyond the fact that I would never put ruffled underwear on my boy, no I won't because he is strapped in, locked down and secure. He has never known anything else and I'm glad of it. I believe in seat belts but the idea that he is immobile for so long is a bit sad at times. We took a lot of breaks when he could get out and walk/run around a bit.

With our collective interest in safety I was stunned to see the "safe" construction speed on a Michigan highway posted at 60 mph. Yes you read that right 60. On Michigan highways you don't get too close to on-coming traffic, you are separated by a wooded area. The workers were on the other side of this wooded area. This meant that there was one lane of traffic for each direction separated by a concrete guard. With trees on one side of me and concrete on the other it felt like I was driving in a tube/tunnel/ditch (you pick the scariest one and that's it) and I was driving at 60 mph to avoid being squashed by the big truck behind me. Yikes!

I remember my father grumbling in 1973 when the national speed limit of 55 mph went into effect and I remember him commenting on how much more you got to see on the trip when you weren't driving 70 mph. 70 MPH! In retrospect we are so lucky we never had an accident back then. With 2 kids bouncing around the car yelling "Cows! Cows! Moo! Moo! Moo!" or "Pigs! Pigs! Oink! Oink! Oink!" none of us would have survived any kind of collision.