My first road trip

 

North Carolina house, after the siding was added.

Tall windows were for the front and back bedrooms.

Small window was the end of a small enclosed porch off the kitchen.

By the time of this photo, it had been turned into a real bathroom.

By summer of 1962 most of the work in our Topanga house was done. Is work in a house ever really done? Not when it is your profession. My dad was officially in business. He bought a used station wagon that he could load up with tools and supplies. I remember it as a dirty light pink color, but what did I know of car brands, this was the summer I turned 7.

My dad decided to drive across the country to visit his family in North Carolina. My mom did not have enough vacation days. So my little girl self went alone with my dad and 13 year old brother. My dad always drove this trip straight through. 

We left in the early afternoon. In this way we would cross the worst of the desert during the night. There was a box of peanut butter and crackers, canned meat products, and fig newtons. We also had a jug of water and a thermos of coffee for my dad. We would only be stopping for breakfast and gas. 

I learned this journey over several later trips, but this first one I have few memories of. I do remember laughing at the name “Albeturkey” and then seeing the light of Albuquerque rising up in the desert night as we came over a rise. There was the slow desert sunrise and road signs for places we never stopped. 

Air conditioning was never part of our family cars. The heat was broken by an occasional soda from a gas station vending machine. I only saw the sights that were visible from the highways, but the highways were not all the wide interstates of later years. 

Just before the second dawn, we pulled over somewhere and my dad took a long nap. The view out the windows had turned greener. I was sticky from spilled sodas, dripped popsicles, and growing humidity. I had also learned the art of squatting to potty behind a handy bush. Every time we stopped for gas, I could only hope there would be a bathroom that didn’t smell. 

We went over the twists of the Blue Ridge Mountains at night, and dropped down into North Wilkesboro in the morning. It is my first memory of my Grandma’s house there, the one where my dad grew up. 

The two bedroom house with the porch across the front was unpainted weathered wood.  I only remember a few differences from clearer memories of later trips. I think this was the trip when my dad laid fresh rolled roofing. Over the next few years he added asphalt siding. There was no indoor plumbing, besides a kitchen sink with a pump to draw water. Hot water for washing had to be ladled from the reservoir of the wood burning stove. There was an outhouse for the other needs, out by the wood pile and shed. 

I played with neighborhood kids, got washed off under a hose, and met an unknown number of cousins, aunts, and uncles. My grandma had been paralyzed on one side from a stroke when I was still a baby. She had the front bedroom that was crowded with big, dark wood furniture. My Uncle Edgar and his wife had the back bedroom, shared with their two kids. Scott was a few years younger than me, and Lisa was still a baby. I played more with the kids across the street. 

Grandpa died sometime before I was born. He had worked setting up the tooling in a furniture factory. That area of North Carolina is well known for quality wood furniture. While I played, my dad went out and acquired 6 new kitchen chairs to replace our old chrome chairs that went with our table. 

The back seat of the station wagon was folded down. The chairs fitted like puzzle pieces. Our belongings were fit between the legs.  Enough space was left along one side that my brother or I could fit in to sleep, or to just make extra room on the front bench seat. 

I have a few other memories from that trip, but they are parts of later stories. The chairs graced our table for another 7 years, and I think my brother may have used them after that. Those are also stories for another day. 

In California, in Topanga Canyon, I had neighbors of many different economic levels. I knew kids whose parents worked in film and television. I knew kids that had more than one bathroom. I didn’t know anyone who only had an out house and a wood burning stove. I even have a slight memory that the North Carolina house may have still used an icebox. I grew up in one world, but was often acutely aware of humbler roots. 

We look at each other and we make assumptions based on where we live, the lives we have experienced. I know that has happened to me often, and from vastly different parts of my life. I hope by sharing my stories people will want to look beyond appearances. Who would you like to know more about? What stories do you have to tell? 

Writing on the back says 1947?

Grandma and an uncle at the dining table.

You can see the end of the sink through the door,

the pump is on the other end.

The wood stove is out of sight on the right.

The ice box is behind the photographer.

Aunt Linda, Uncle Edgar,

Lisa and Scott, 1963.

This is the corner of the living room where a small

wood stove was set up for winter heat.

I remember being put to bed on that couch.