| Many folks would think my dad and mother, Pete and Amy, were simple farm folks. Today’s world would call them uneducated. Hillary called them “deplorables.” My family valued travel and I was given a lot of “field trips” because of their venturous curiosity and love of people and places. We had yearly visits to the mountains in Colorado an fishing trips to South Texas including a visit into Old Mexico. Amy kept journals of expenses and experiences enough for us to occasionally find a pen pal along the way. These trips were educational ventures as you can see by her collection of state promotion material. These were from a trip to Oregon and Washington with return down through California. Also a trip to Florida. |
I’m trying to remember what we did on the road during those long hours. I know the classic A-Z was one game that was always good. We played “I Spy.” Now this next one sounds rough, I can’t even find it on google. Probably too violet for some families, but we did not hurt each other. The activity was “Red truck, no pinch back,” changing to yellow car, black cow, or anything one might pass by without having to wait too long. We also a string for stringing Jacob’s Ladder of Cat’s in the Cradle. One can learn quite a bit by checking license tags keeping a list of states and their emblems. Whatever we were doing, we had to take time for the Burma Shave signs!
I’m sure there is less confusion and the car is less messy since technology gave each child and parent their own world to travel in, but I notice siblings still have more fun by poking at each other.
By the way, I never even noticed that we were deplorable even though we didn’t visit Gay Paree and the cattle market my dad invested in was the one in which he had to milk, feed, water, and round up the cattle.
Even though these were good in the “good ole days” you might still want to try some out during your summer’s travel. As Dale Evans might say, “Happy Trails to You.”
Sweet aroma 
“Probably too violet?” How can anything be too purple!? … oh, “violent.” Never mind. 😂
“You can drive
A mile a minute
But there is
No future in it.
Burma Shave”
Man, how I miss those poems!
❤️&🙏, c.a.
Almost make a woman want to shave. About the violet, I think the rationale goes something like this. If a person is depressed, one can say he is in a violet mood, so if he becomes more depressed, he may become violent. Do you buy that story, I wouldn’t either. I’ll just admit you caught me in an error. 😀
Your childhood vacations sound exactly like mine Oneta! They were the best ever.
We have an appreciation for those family events, don’t we? We didn’t have air conditioned cars in those days. Well, that’s a positive change!
I played the “smash a bug” every-time we saw a VW on our road trips with our daughter and/or her friends. She was an “only” so brought friends along as much as we could!