October 5, 2022
Just Saying…
By Q.C. Jones
A Road Trip through Time
Your pal and erstwhile correspondent, QC Jones, is freshly returned from a long-distance road trip. I find there is nothing more mentally refreshing than 14 hours in the car beating across this great nation of ours. If you have ever made such a trip, you may realize what I am saying.
Here’s the scene. Excited about the getaway and the spending some quality time together, our merry crew loads their suitcases and travel necessities into the car. The doors close, the engine roars, and road trip is under way. Four great friends in a comfortable automobile heading down the great American Interstate Highway system.
The first hour sees gossip flow like the Mississippi during a 1000-year flood. News about kids, mutual friends, looming retirements, family members, and new recipes linger in the air. The next hour moves to trip details, good places to eat along the route, and a quick stop at a massive Kum & Go store for a fresh cup of coffee and a failed search for an Original Klondike Choco Taco. As the vehicle pushes past the Omaha exit, actually there is a dozen of them, the conversation becomes a bit “more sparse.”
A side note to those of you who are English Aficionados and Grammar Nazis: Yep, our dictionary says “sparser” not “more sparse.” I said it out loud a couple of times and made a judgement call. I am sticking with the QC Jones journalistic trifecta – Bad judgement, bad attitude, and bad grammar. Now back to our road trip already four hours in progress.
After this flurry of actively engaging, conversation died out, I found myself in random and undirected thought. I believe most of us are seriously deprived of this kind of state of mind. Personally, my best ideas seem to appear out of thin air when I am in this conscious and undirected state.
This year’s road trip mirrored a similar road trip I made along with my parents and four siblings back in 1966. While many of my childhood memories are a bit blurry, this road trip was documented in living black and white by a 12-year-old QC Jones using a camera purchased for two dollars at the local Woolworth’s Department Store. Reminiscing a moment on the local Woolworths, I believe it might have been a bit of a stretch to call it a “Department Store.” Perhaps a better term would have been a large dime store with a lunch counter.
My daughter discovered the 36 pictures from my three rolls of film last year and posted them on the internet. Walking through these pictures brought the half-century old details of this road trip front and center. It confirmed a few points that, quite frankly, I thought were just figments of my imagination.
Indulge me, perhaps pack your bags, and join me as we review my 1966 road trip.
As already stated, QC comes from a family of seven. Moving that number of people from point A to point B requires a special vehicle. In our case, a plain jane white with little chrome 1964 Chevrolet Belaire station wagon. These were advertised to hold nine people; probably possible, but comfort would be sacrificed. Further, my parents considered air conditioning on a car to be an unnecessary luxury. Close your eyes and envision seven humans hurling down the highway, blasting through a Kansas summer for eight hours with all the windows rolled fully down.
My parents rarely took this massive horde out to dine in some restaurant. We crossed America equipped with everything needed to fix roadside meals. These were not cold cut sandwiches, but rather a full menu meal. Here’s how it worked. Around lunchtime, we scouted out some roadside rest area or park equipped with a picnic table and one of those permanent grills.
As soon as one of these areas was located, the entire family sprung into action. Mom and my oldest sister got the food sliced and prepared for cooking. My brother and I gathered firewood to build and maintain the fire. My dad expertly started the fire with old newspapers carried for that purpose. While all this was happening, my youngest twin sisters wiped down the picnic table, laid out the tablecloth, and set out the dishes. Lunch was always served with some great fanfare including a prayer for our continued
safe travels.
Returning to the present: As I sat in the car conjuring up this long ago, I recalled one of my favorite roadside meals. It included cooked pork and beans, hamburgers, fried potatoes, a salad, and a couple of special cookies sent on the trip by my paternal grandmother. Day dreaming is hard work. A person can build up quite an appetite. It must be time for food.
Everything in these modern days is different. We seem to be in too big a rush to spend time fixing food along the side of the highway. Using my Google Map application on my phone, I pull up “restaurants near me.” There we go, the Great Wall Chinese restaurant is two exits away.
I love a road trip. I am glad our vehicle has air conditioning. The Asian food was good, but I suspect not as good as those roadside meals of my childhood. Just saying…
