Melodious Road Trips

[susandennis]

We took lots of car trips when I was growing up. It was before airline deregulation and flying was not so ubiquitous. So you only flew when there was water in the way (and even then, when we took The Family European Vacation, we went over on an ocean liner).

We had some road trip rituals. We were allowed to take our shoes off. This was a big deal. Going barefoot was generally never allowed except in the swimming pool. And... on car trips. As we got near a stop and by near, I mean within 30 minutes, Daddy would start telling us to put our shoes on. We would ignore him. At the 15 minute mark, he stopped asking nicely and started barking. We would ignore him. At 5 minutes, Mom would start begging. We would ignore her. As the car rolled to a stop, we'd announce that we couldn't find our shoes.

I have no idea why all this happened but it did over and over and over and over. In 1998, Mom and Dad hosted everyone in Charleston for their 50th wedding anniversary. As it happened at one point my brother, sister and I ended up in the car with Mom and Dad (without spouses or children). We were going to dinner or somewhere. As we pulled up to the valet parking, we were all chattering and Daddy announced 'Ok, We're HERE!!' And Mom in a quiet but pleading voice said 'Please tell me you have your shoes on.' We all nearly wet our pants.

But this entry is about tunes. We sang. We sang mile after mile after mile after mile. Daddy had a beautiful voice. Mom did very decent harmony. We all chimed in. We'd generally start out with camp songs "Do you Ears Hang Low..." and old songs "Casey Would Waltz With The Strawberry Blonde..." and then maybe some pop "Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny..." and "The Little Nash Rambler..."

When we ran out of those, we'd go to Baptist hymns. We knew a lot of those (and a lot of verses). And then we'd move on to Broadway. Oklahoma was hot and South Pacific and we'd start and the overture and through to the end. We could so whole states - like Kentucky and Tennessee (east to west) and never have to repeat.

I can not carry a tune. Couldn't then and can't now. BUT I knew all the words. They let me sing but my important job was to lip sing (not sync) ... so Daddy could use my lip movements to pick up the words. While he drove.

And, the bene was that I got to ride shotgun. That was huge.