Small Boy Sizes Up a Vacation

Me

   (In which a travel-weary father reluctantly writes a 10-year-old's version of a vacation)

By TOM GUTHRIE

(son of CHARLES M. GUTHRIE

of the Minneapolis Tribune editorial page staff)

published by the StarTribune

August 1, 1959

   MOM said we had to eat what was in the refrigerator as it would spoil before we got back.  I don't care for scraps.  Neither does Pop, but for four days before we went on our vacation he was choking down cottage cheese, olives, celery, carrots and beans.  You will look a long time before finding a fellow more willing to save a buck.

   The old man never had driven to the east coast before.  He says he is mainly a dirt-road driver and when you ride with him you know it.  We did fine until we hit strange country.  Then Pop began making wrong turns and cussing out the highway department for being so Scotch with road signs.  "You'd think they cost a thousand dollars apiece," he griped.

   THE ONLY evening we holed up early was at Norway, Mich.  We got there about 5 p.m. the first day, after a free lunch on my sister in Rhinelander, Wis.  Pop knew we could get a bargain rate on a cabin, with me sleeping on our cot.  Some sleep!

   Otherwise we kept driving until all the motels were filled up.  As long as Mom sees "vacancy" signs she figures we can drive on a little further, and Pop doesn't like to get reservations ahead.  He says it freezes  your schedule.

   OUR SCHEDULE was thawed out good the second day, when we pulled out of London, Ontario, and drove the wrong way for 25 miles.  Mom, who spent more time looking at road maps and tour books than scenery, said something was rotten in Denmark because we weren't coming to any of the towns we should.  But the old man said he knew what he was doing as the guy said the motel we stayed at was right on the route to Niagara Falls.

   "Maybe we're going in the wrong direction," said Mom.

   "We are not going in the wrong direction," Pop sneered, "but to make you happy I'll stop at the next gas station and inquire."

   WE HAD a late breakfast in London, Ontario.  After 50 miles of driving we had made no gain.  Some breakfast!  Mom and Pop were white with fury.

Me at Niagara Falls

   Niagara Falls made everybody happy again.  "It's a good thing we have the kid along," Pop cracked, "or they'd take us for a couple of honeymooners."  Mom smiled, giving the old man credit for a nice recovery, and everything was fine until we crossed the bridge back into the U.S. and began groping around for the New York thruway, which everybody said we couldn't miss if we followed the signs.

   They said we couldn't miss a lot of places but the old man missed them all.  Finally he said he would strangle the next guy who said "you can't miss it."  To follow the signs, he said, you needed the eyes of a falcon and the nose of a bloodhound and also should be a mind reader.  He would give his eye teeth, he said, to be driving down a country lane that was garnished with horse manure.

   ON THE turnpikes things were better.  There was only one way to go.  They were even simpler than Choteau, Mont., Pop said, and he often let Mom drive on them.  The only thing she didn't like was passing big trucks on curves, even though there was no chance of getting smeared if she kept in the passing lane, as the old man kept yapping at her.

Pop and me looking at the Mayflower

   We stopped at Boston before going to Cape Cod for a week and Pop said they should tear the place down and start over, sparing only the historic spots.  He said Boston obviously was laid out by a guy with delirium tremens and if he spent a week there he'd die of claustrophobia and frustration. 

   We took a sightseeing bus you could fry an egg on but it was worth the price to watch the driver thread the thing through dinky one-way streets and miss barber poles and store fronts by inches.  He also had to yack about Paul Revere and Bunker Hill.  The guy deserves a raise.

   IT RAINED most of the time on Cape Cod.  We spent one lively morning looking at old tombstones.  One inscription said "Death Is Gain."  Pop said the fellow must have driven in Boston.  We also saw Plymouth Rock, the Pilgrim monument in Provincetown and a hermit crab.

Me and Mom at Plymouth Rock

   In New York we took a boat ride around Manhattan and saw the Statue of Liberty and a lot of bridges and tall buildings and Pop bought me a hot dog in a burst of generosity.

   On the way home we stopped at Gettysburg and in a museum they had a map of the battlefield with blue and red lights that flashed on and off while a fellow explained how the Confederates got smeared.  Near Gettysburg we stopped at a place where cokes were only a nickel.  It was all quite historic.

   BACK ON the turnpike Mom looked at the map and said we were close to Wheeling and she'd like to slip down and see Helen Gregory.

   "For your information," Pop declared, "we are not slipping down anywhere to see anybody.  We already have slipped around for 3,500 miles.  I'm ready to slip home."

   That's what we did.

Copyright 2014 StarTribune.  Republished here with the permission of the StarTribune.  No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the express approval of the StarTribune.