May 26, 2014
Just thinking a road trip brings me to the backseat of my childhood car-- a 1961 Chevy Impala-- as my sister, mother and father headed for our two week vacation to Pennsylvania; no seat belts, no air conditioning, just the wind in our faces. Each year was the same, so I am not sure if it was 1968 or another summer road trip I am remembering. I know I always felt that satisfying butterflies-in-my-stomach sensation that meant the best part of my summer was at the end of that road.
I remember how the smoke from my father's stogie swirled around inside the car and then was pulled out the open windows to mix with the odors of wet pavement, car exhausts and that gritty tin taste that will always be Manhattan to me.
New York City 1968
It took us six hours to get from New York City to my mother's family farm in northeastern Pennsylvania. I knew we were getting closer when the radio stations my father listened to started to get static and then finally gave over to a more local station playing country music, with commercials for stores I didn't know. Soon the air stopped smelling like the city and instead smelled of new mown hay and wet earth. Spending two weeks in the country meant swimming in ponds, not public swimming pools, catching fire-flies in jars, running barefooted in the fields, exploring the caves that bordered my mother's family farm, and singing songs around a campfire. Those two weeks meant everything to me. And getting there on the open road was the start of the adventure.
Baba's House in Dushore, Pennsylvania 1968
So now, the composition book I used as a vacation journal back then, has become a blog. I am new to this. It is certainly high tech for me. I can't press a flower between its pages, or play a game of tic tac toe on a back page, to pass the time with my sister. But, hopefully when I am done with this blog, I will have recorded some great memories.
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