Parents can sometimes be sadists. What person in their right mind would look at 4 children and think, I need to pile these kids into an un-airconditioned car and drive somewhere for 14 hours. Yes, that is the perfect way to spend quality family time."
We did it anyway, and our car was air conditioned because my mother didn't believe in air conditioners, that it wasted money running them in the car when you could put the windows down. Where did we go from Baltimore, MD - to "The Happiest Place On Earth." 14 hours to Disney World, and to make it even more interesting, we'd add my grandmother to the mix. The family car consisted of my father driving, my mother in the middle holding a baby with my grandmother next to her. The remaining three of us were left to our own devices in the back seat.
Kids can become creative about life in the back seat of a car when the phone, DVD players, computers and gamers are not around. We taped the Star Trek episodes and played the cassettes on our trips. We played the "slap game," a willing participant would lay open their bare leg, for a sibling to slap it as hard as they could, the goal being a win if you didn't scream. If you did scream, that would prompt the adults in the front of the car to either pull over and beat you or to reach back for someone's hair because your scream was timed perfectly to when the baby finally fell asleep.
Sleeping during those long road trips was a child's way of fast forwarding the time. Close your eyes and on the short trips by the time you woke up - you where there. On the long trips, it was time you didn't have your sister bugging you. Back in the days when no one wore a seat belt, one child took the seat, another the floor board while the youngest laid in the back window. Imagine our thoughts now if we passed a car with a child laying in the back window?
The only escape from sweat and smell was to roll down the windows, and this kept my mother happy. That was when I could fly, put my hand out the window and scoop the air, letting it move my arm up and down to some internal rhythm while my mind pictures my body about the clouds and in a place that smelled much better.
We always did this drive in the winter, gauging how far we've gone by the layers of clothing ditched to the floorboard. On one particular drive, the one that is still known as the "blue Bermuda Shorts" drive, my father wore a pair of sky blue polyester shorts, and I am not using the word "wore" lightly. My Dad, being a simple man, if he liked it then he wore it - a lot, and sometimes that was not a good thing.
The first few days with the shorts passed uneventfully. Spending days out in the Florida heat riding Space Mountain, going down the Jungle Cruise. Every single picture from that trip has my Dad wearing those blue shorts.
Riding in the car back from Cypress Gardens, we all decided to stop at a local restaurant and grab a bite to eat. My Dad was the first one out of the car with the prospect of food. As he jumped out, everyone in the car looked to each other as we wrinkled our nose. My younger sister quietly whispered, "What is that smell?" The baby made a noise so we all figured it was her.
After the restaurant and again in the car, Dad announced that we had to stop and get gas. He got up to pump the gas and everyone looked around again. "Did someone fart?" My brother asked.
It took two more stops and another day before we realized it was the Blue Bermuda Shorts. Kids forget things very easily as we played games like, "Whoever smelt it, dealt it. Whoever denied it supplied it." He stopped to pump some more gas and we all looked at the drivers seat.
It was Dad.
And THOSE blue Bermuda Shorts.
We confirmed this observation when Dad stopped and got out to check us into the hotel. How do children deal with the prospect of telling their Father his shorts stuck? Only in a kid kind of way.
"Do you think he knows?"
""Sure, he has to..."
"What about grandmom, why hasn't she said anything?"
"She's old, she probably can't smell anymore."
"Mom has the baby, she's used to that kind of smell."
"Oh God, here he comes, hold your nose!"
My Dad not only wore those shorts during our vacation, but he wore them the whole way home. He got out of the car to pump gas, and one of us was woken out of our nap by the smell. We stopped for souvenirs at South of the Border and everyone jumped out of the car before he got up. Even as we rode past the Mason/Dixon line we begged my mother to keep the windows "cracked" because the "fresh air was good for us."
And the shorts?
They walked themselves into the washing machine the minute he changed out of them into his slacks. And they sat in the drawer until that next road trip.
We brought clothes pins.
We have Fall (I am not allowed to say Halloween) treat bags for the last day of the quarter. Like a good grade parent, I sent out the call for trinkets (I was trying to be responsible) for the bags. Obviously all the parents must have good dental insurance (which I pay cash for) because the pile of candy that came in was astounding! Here's why my son wanted this job.
