The Trip Out East - Part One

The path down memory lane is well trodden in this blog.  It’s not that I am living in the past but the past always seems to be lingering.  It could be a smell that takes me back to Oma’s house, a picture that sparks a forgotten funny story, or a taste of something that transports you back to your childhood.  Last week I was at my sister Ally’s house and a song came on that sent my mind and my over active memory reeling back to a family vacation out East.

We were loaded up in the family station wagon.  Becky and Ally were in the back of the station wagon and were setting up Barbie land.  Derek, Scott and I were in the middle bench, Mom was up in the front navigating, and Dad was piloting the old bird.  

Dad was sporting one of his classic sun-visors; Derek had his trusty camouflage hat perched on his head and was wearing a t-shirt with a wolf howling into the moon.  Scott, for some inexplicable reason that still eludes us to this day was a full fledged Montreal Canadiens fan, and was draped with a Habs shirt.  The girls had matching clothes and matching hair accessories.  We were a fine looking bunch and we were ready to explore the Maritimes. 

We said goodbye to the house and headed east.  A large plastic ‘hamburger’ was strapped down on the roof-rack and was jammed with all of our luggage.

The first few hours of the trip flew by.  Before we knew it we were past Toronto and close to the nation’s capital.  It was at this point that the novelty of a long car ride wore off like novocaine.  Things were heating up in Barbie land in the back seat.  

“You’ve had all the best Barbie clothes.  Let’s trade.” demanded Becky.

“Fine.  But I’m not playing anymore.” replied Ally.

The Barbies went from dolls to weapons in a flash.  Dad wisely pulled off at the next exit when he saw Ken coming down on the head of his youngest daughter in the rear-view mirror.  It was time for a pit stop.  

 We were relieved to finally be out of Ontario and into ‘la belle province’ of Quebec.  Derek thought it would be a good time to serenade us all by whistling along with the music.  The rest of us chimed in from time to time with such loving phrases as “Shut-up Derek!” to “Mom, tell Derek to shut-up!”  

As we passed Montreal, Becky decided that the tasteless wad of hubba-bubba gum had to go.  She had been chewing it since Cornwall.  Scott and I had been banished to the backseat and the girls were in the middle with Derek.  Becky rolled down her window and spit her gum out.  It flew out the window but was sucked back by the force field the station wagon was creating.  The huge blob of hot pink hubba-bubba was now stuck to the side window.  Mom and Dad were not impressed.

“That’s it!  No more gum – EVER!” said Dad.

“For crying out loud, that gum’s going to be stuck there till we get to PEI!” echoed Mom.

We learned that day that hubba-bubba chewing gum was resilient stuff.  It was securely affixed to the window and was not going anywhere.  We began to discuss, with a growing sense of certainty, the theory that gum could indeed camp out in your stomach for at least seven years if you swallowed it.  

 No doubt this type intellectual banter made the car ride fly by for Mom and Dad.  After exhausting the subject of hubba-bubba bubble gum, we delved into such deep topics as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Steve Urkel, why people in Quebec talked funny, and if Timbits were actual donut holes or if they just made them separate.  Whenever silence threatened, we resorted to our favourite Home Alone quotes.  

By the time we hit New Brunswick, Becky and Ally were re-enacting Anne of Green Gables with their Barbies and were mourning the loss of Matthew.  We all paused for a moment of silence as Matthew (played by Ken) was buried in the back glove compartment.

As the trip progressed, the stereo kept getting louder and louder.  It was almost as if Mom and Dad were trying to drown us out.  Michael W. Smith’s First Decade cassette was our favourite and was in danger of wearing out by this point.  We knew every word to every song and all of the back-up parts to boot.  These are the songs today that seem to teleport me back into the station wagon.

Finally after many hours and kilometres, we made it to the ferry crossing.  Prince Edward Island was in our sights.

Stay tuned for part two...

The Custom Cruiser (they don't make 'em like they used to)

I have come to the stage of my life where I can now tell my students what life was like when I was their age. I particularly enjoy telling them about our station wagon. In this day and age of futuristic space aged minivans with all the fixings, the 1980’s station wagon seems like something out of the Smithsonian. It was a very unique vehicle. The first thing that struck you about the station wagon was its length. It was at least thirty feet long. The classic wagon’s were two-toned. The bottom was wood panelled and the top was a solid colour. The wood panelling gave off a sense of class (or maybe that it was very flammable). The spoked rims were encircled by classic white-walled tires.

I can still remember when Dad brought ‘her’ home for the first time. It glided into the driveway the same way a F-16 lands on the deck of a aircraft carrier. I was waiting on the sidewalk – eager to see the new family ride. Dad was very excited about the new car and had told us that the car was ‘fully loaded’. He had said that the interior looked like the cockpit of an airplane. He was right too – the inside was bedazzled with knobs and switches (some of which had zero uses as we came to realize later). We loved the station wagon at first, but the honeymoon quickly ended.

The first major drawback was the backseat of the wagon. Two people could sit in the back and would face backwards. It was always awkward when you were stopped at an intersection and you were face to face with the driver behind you. You couldn’t open the back door from the inside either – you either had to crawl out of the window, or wait until someone opened it from the outside. Initially sitting in the back felt like you were in a limousine with someone opening the door for you, but this changed quickly when someone ‘forgot’ to open the back door and you were stuck in the hold of that cavernous beast.

Dad took a lot of pride in the station wagon – or woody wagon – as we started to call it. Dad and I cleaned her every Saturday. I would handle the white walls and rims, and Dad would take care of the gigantic hood and the panelling. Little did we know then that this Saturday ritual would be dropped due to the decline of this venerable vehicle.

The decline started with the start of school. The bus stop was about five kilometres down the road and Mom had to drive us to the bus stop every morning. We would all pile in the woody wagon bright and early and get dropped off at the bus stop. My older brother Derek had just come to the point in his life where he started doing his hair. This meant that Mom and the rest of us had to wait in the car until Derek had slicked his hair back with half a litre of gel. By the time Fonzie, I mean Derek, came out of the house we would be late for the bus. Once Derek would get into the car and we got used to the cloud of aftershave and cologne Derek had anointed himself with, Mom would throw the car into reverse and lurch out of the driveway. Once on the road, Mom would jam the ignition into drive and stomp on the gas pedal in a way that would of have won great acclaim at the Indy 500. The great engine roared to life as the gas flowed into it like the mighty Mississippi. A belch of exhaust signalled our launch as I looked out of the back window to see if I could see a hole yawn open in the ozone. The road we lived on was very bumpy and pot-holed. It was the type of road that would bog an army tank down. This did not intimidate Mom – she would weave around the craters with great skill. Sadly this daily ritual took a toll on the station wagon – it seemed to lose some of its pep after a while.

A crushing blow to the aesthetic beauty of the wagon came when Derek got his licence. One fall day, Derek had built up some good steam with the wagon and was careening around a sharp curve. A cube van was approaching from the opposite direction and was encroaching into Derek’s lane. Being the woodsman that he is, Derek veered away from the truck and scraped a large stump that was parked on the shoulder. It was wood on (faux) wood. The stump came out of the ordeal unscathed. Sadly the wagon’s wheel well was pushed in and mangled. Whenever we hit large bumps in the road (i.e. everyday on the way to the bus-stop), the damaged wheel well would scrape along the tire.

There really is so much more to say about this great car. The trip out East in the wagon could fill a book by itself. In the end the wagon just came to a gurgling halt. There was no great explosion or heroic finish. She was like the ol’ family pet who has to be put down – just as ‘Fluffy’ is put to sleep, so to was the wagon put to sleep (aka – crushed) at the wreckers (that thing had enough metal to build at least 50 Hyundai Accents). No more spokes, no more white walls, no more wood panelling, no more ear splitting scraping noises from the crushed wheel well, no more awkward stares from the back seat, and no more useless knobs and buttons. No more.