When I was nine, my parents decided that my brother, sister, and I would benefit from that almighty road trip to see our great country. They planned this trip for months ahead of time. My dad mapped a route with all the educational and some of the entertaining highlights and then fitted our camper with an intercom. My mother was also in the camper, scrubbing, cleaning, and carrying in loads of supplies.
At the end of my fourth grade year, we all set out on a month-long adventure to drive from Indiana to California and back by different routes. I'd like to write the whole story here, but that would take several chapters - walking on a glacier in July, speeding through Las Vegas, reverse engineering the Haunted House at Disneyland, the flat tire on a mountainside in Yosemite, and the size of seeing big things as a little kid. I'll get to all that in time. That trip somehow changed my life.
On the return part of the trip, we traveled the Northern route, detouring through the Needles Scenic Highway in South Dakota. Not long after we left the main road, it narrowed to the size of the lane in front of my grandparent's house. The granite spires were steep all around us and a few even had slots where I imagined huge lengths of thread would go. The best and the worst part of the needles for a nine-year-old girl was going through the tunnels in our camper. Most of these tunnels had been blasted out of the stone in 1922 when roads were much simpler, and smaller.
See, our camper was kind of big for those small tunnels. They were only cut for one lane. But my dad saw himself as a good enough driver to get through even tight spaces. He wanted to see Mt. Rushmore through the last tunnel. Knowing the kind of guy he was, he would have measured the height and width of the camper to see if we could get through, but I'm not certain if he really did.
As we drove carefully through the first tunnel, I was excited, but began to get a little nervous.
"Daddy, I have to pee," I told him as I sat between him and my mom in the cab of our '64 GMC pickup. My dad didn't answer. There were people waiting to go through in the other direction, but even that wouldn't make him speed through when he had only a foot or two on either side of the the camper. I could see just a little sweat at his temple.
"Honey, you have to wait," my mother said, trying to diffuse the tension. I really did have to pee, probably because I was a little claustrophobic. I blame my brother for that because he was the one who made me crawl through the hollow log. It made me afraid of spiders too.
"I really have to pee," I whispered. My dad didn't speed up one iota, but we made it out and they stopped alongside the road for me to find a quiet spot. I figured I'd get a good case of chiggers from the tall grass but that was all the cover I could find. I hated chiggers.
After I got back into the truck and we were on our way again, it didn't take us long to get to the next tunnel. It was a little smaller still and true to my nature, I had to pee again while we crept through. I kept my mouth shut because I'd noticed the crescent of dampness under the arms of my dad's white T-shirt.
The third tunnel was a little smaller still. They made me think of the nesting Russian dolls, all the same, but each a little smaller than the last. My dad pulled up to the tunnel and started measuring. Yes, he had a measuring tape with him. What good engineer wouldn't? We could make it through, he announced, but the wide side view mirrors he'd put on the truck wouldn't. He backed up the camper, pulled as far off the road as he could get, and pulled out his toolbox. As he worked, my brother and I walked back and forth through the tunnel. My brother was hoping for some action, so I remember him fingering rocks that stuck out further than the others. My sister sat in the camper with her book. My mother went back and forth from yelling at us to watch for traffic and cleaning up in the camper.
It seemed like it took my dad forever, but that's because he'd had to take off the inside panels from each door to get to the bolts that held the mirrors on. Plus, one of the bolts was tight and my dad kept swearing "God dammit!" and wishing he'd packed more tools. By the time he was done, he'd managed to get greasy and dirty. Where there was grease in a bolt holding on a mirror, I couldn't figure out.
Finally, he finished and we all loaded up, me in my place in the cab of the truck, my brother and sister in the back. We waited until all the cars around us were through and we were alone with the tunnel. As we started in, my dad called my brother on the intercom. "Brian, get your camera and take a picture of the front of the truck in the tunnel. Use the tape measure so you can see how much room we have on each side!"
We stopped, just the nose of the truck plugging the blasted out hole. My brother noodled around with the camera and took his pictures, leaning into the open window and said, "You have three inches and a quarter on the driver's side and four and an eighth on the passenger side." I could tell he was excited. He climbed back into the camper.
My dad inched forward and all of a sudden, I realized we couldn't open the doors even if we wanted to. We were trapped. I started to sweat along side my dad. I could feel my elbow, slimy, at his elbow. I tried not to touch him, but there wasn't enough room. His shirt was soaked with sweat and it was dripping down the sides of his face. I didn't say a word.
The problem was that I had to pee. Bad. The minute I realized we couldn't open the doors, it hit. It seemed like forever since that tall grass. And the elastic around my sock was itchy. I scratched it waiting to hear metal scraping on rock.
"Sit still, Jilly," my mother said. She didn't use the word she usually used for me - wiggle wart. She was trying to help my dad concentrate. How one person can really concentrate for another person, I don't know, but my mother did.
Suddenly, there were people everywhere. We were only half-way through and my dad was creeping through that tunnel slower than a crawler hauling an Apollo launch vehicle to it's pad. The people stood in the middle of the road in front of us. We couldn't see the people behind us - No side mirrors, remember? And the camper obliterated the view out the rear view - but we could hear them talking. The longer this trip took, the more people gathered. They took pictures of us. They coaxed us along. "You're doing great!" one guy said over and over. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the older men weren't making bets on our success. All of a sudden, my dad's manliness was at stake. He would be so embarrassed if we got stuck or even scraped the paint. Nothing so far.
I tried to think of Dr. Doolittle crossing the ocean in his glass snail shell. It didn't work. I still had to pee. I leaned over to my mom and whispered, "I have to pee." She didn't even look at me, just sighed that slow and dangerous sigh. I shut up.
Finally, we made it through. By then, there were about twenty people standing around clapping and cheering us. I felt like I was on the best float in a parade. It was great! I was so proud of us. I forgot that I'd had to pee so badly.
We waved and drove on down the road in a cloud of glory. I could see that my dad was ready. He did it. He could do it again. We quickly got to the next tunnel, but all of us let out a sigh in unison. The tunnel was too small. Even without my dad's measuring tape, I could see we weren't going in, let alone through. So my dad turned around and we drove back to repeat the performance at our last tunnel.
There were people standing around again. Different people, I hoped. There were camera's burning through flashbulbs, but somehow I wasn't as elated about the attention the second time around. And I didn't even have to pee one little bit the whole way through. Go figure.
Thank you for listening, jb
At the end of my fourth grade year, we all set out on a month-long adventure to drive from Indiana to California and back by different routes. I'd like to write the whole story here, but that would take several chapters - walking on a glacier in July, speeding through Las Vegas, reverse engineering the Haunted House at Disneyland, the flat tire on a mountainside in Yosemite, and the size of seeing big things as a little kid. I'll get to all that in time. That trip somehow changed my life.
On the return part of the trip, we traveled the Northern route, detouring through the Needles Scenic Highway in South Dakota. Not long after we left the main road, it narrowed to the size of the lane in front of my grandparent's house. The granite spires were steep all around us and a few even had slots where I imagined huge lengths of thread would go. The best and the worst part of the needles for a nine-year-old girl was going through the tunnels in our camper. Most of these tunnels had been blasted out of the stone in 1922 when roads were much simpler, and smaller.
See, our camper was kind of big for those small tunnels. They were only cut for one lane. But my dad saw himself as a good enough driver to get through even tight spaces. He wanted to see Mt. Rushmore through the last tunnel. Knowing the kind of guy he was, he would have measured the height and width of the camper to see if we could get through, but I'm not certain if he really did.
As we drove carefully through the first tunnel, I was excited, but began to get a little nervous.
"Daddy, I have to pee," I told him as I sat between him and my mom in the cab of our '64 GMC pickup. My dad didn't answer. There were people waiting to go through in the other direction, but even that wouldn't make him speed through when he had only a foot or two on either side of the the camper. I could see just a little sweat at his temple.
"Honey, you have to wait," my mother said, trying to diffuse the tension. I really did have to pee, probably because I was a little claustrophobic. I blame my brother for that because he was the one who made me crawl through the hollow log. It made me afraid of spiders too.
"I really have to pee," I whispered. My dad didn't speed up one iota, but we made it out and they stopped alongside the road for me to find a quiet spot. I figured I'd get a good case of chiggers from the tall grass but that was all the cover I could find. I hated chiggers.
After I got back into the truck and we were on our way again, it didn't take us long to get to the next tunnel. It was a little smaller still and true to my nature, I had to pee again while we crept through. I kept my mouth shut because I'd noticed the crescent of dampness under the arms of my dad's white T-shirt.
The third tunnel was a little smaller still. They made me think of the nesting Russian dolls, all the same, but each a little smaller than the last. My dad pulled up to the tunnel and started measuring. Yes, he had a measuring tape with him. What good engineer wouldn't? We could make it through, he announced, but the wide side view mirrors he'd put on the truck wouldn't. He backed up the camper, pulled as far off the road as he could get, and pulled out his toolbox. As he worked, my brother and I walked back and forth through the tunnel. My brother was hoping for some action, so I remember him fingering rocks that stuck out further than the others. My sister sat in the camper with her book. My mother went back and forth from yelling at us to watch for traffic and cleaning up in the camper.
It seemed like it took my dad forever, but that's because he'd had to take off the inside panels from each door to get to the bolts that held the mirrors on. Plus, one of the bolts was tight and my dad kept swearing "God dammit!" and wishing he'd packed more tools. By the time he was done, he'd managed to get greasy and dirty. Where there was grease in a bolt holding on a mirror, I couldn't figure out.
Finally, he finished and we all loaded up, me in my place in the cab of the truck, my brother and sister in the back. We waited until all the cars around us were through and we were alone with the tunnel. As we started in, my dad called my brother on the intercom. "Brian, get your camera and take a picture of the front of the truck in the tunnel. Use the tape measure so you can see how much room we have on each side!"
We stopped, just the nose of the truck plugging the blasted out hole. My brother noodled around with the camera and took his pictures, leaning into the open window and said, "You have three inches and a quarter on the driver's side and four and an eighth on the passenger side." I could tell he was excited. He climbed back into the camper.
My dad inched forward and all of a sudden, I realized we couldn't open the doors even if we wanted to. We were trapped. I started to sweat along side my dad. I could feel my elbow, slimy, at his elbow. I tried not to touch him, but there wasn't enough room. His shirt was soaked with sweat and it was dripping down the sides of his face. I didn't say a word.
The problem was that I had to pee. Bad. The minute I realized we couldn't open the doors, it hit. It seemed like forever since that tall grass. And the elastic around my sock was itchy. I scratched it waiting to hear metal scraping on rock.
"Sit still, Jilly," my mother said. She didn't use the word she usually used for me - wiggle wart. She was trying to help my dad concentrate. How one person can really concentrate for another person, I don't know, but my mother did.
Suddenly, there were people everywhere. We were only half-way through and my dad was creeping through that tunnel slower than a crawler hauling an Apollo launch vehicle to it's pad. The people stood in the middle of the road in front of us. We couldn't see the people behind us - No side mirrors, remember? And the camper obliterated the view out the rear view - but we could hear them talking. The longer this trip took, the more people gathered. They took pictures of us. They coaxed us along. "You're doing great!" one guy said over and over. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the older men weren't making bets on our success. All of a sudden, my dad's manliness was at stake. He would be so embarrassed if we got stuck or even scraped the paint. Nothing so far.
I tried to think of Dr. Doolittle crossing the ocean in his glass snail shell. It didn't work. I still had to pee. I leaned over to my mom and whispered, "I have to pee." She didn't even look at me, just sighed that slow and dangerous sigh. I shut up.
Finally, we made it through. By then, there were about twenty people standing around clapping and cheering us. I felt like I was on the best float in a parade. It was great! I was so proud of us. I forgot that I'd had to pee so badly.
We waved and drove on down the road in a cloud of glory. I could see that my dad was ready. He did it. He could do it again. We quickly got to the next tunnel, but all of us let out a sigh in unison. The tunnel was too small. Even without my dad's measuring tape, I could see we weren't going in, let alone through. So my dad turned around and we drove back to repeat the performance at our last tunnel.
There were people standing around again. Different people, I hoped. There were camera's burning through flashbulbs, but somehow I wasn't as elated about the attention the second time around. And I didn't even have to pee one little bit the whole way through. Go figure.
Thank you for listening, jb
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