I still remember the wisest thing my father said to me when I was a child. I’d just made a helpful driving suggestion on one of our cross-country vacations, and he replied: “You’ll have to drive one of these some day, smart guy.”

Now that I have, I understand what he was getting at. When a dad is at the end of his rope, he’d probably just as soon use it to bind and gag his young passengers. A day behind the wheel can make any parent feel this way. Anything longer than a grocery run and I’m ready to slam my head in the tailgate. All from dealing with a mere 25 percent of my parents’ responsibilities.

Yep, they had eight kids – practically their own ball team. Yet somehow, they never seemed to have a ball….

Each summer, they’d load up our 1971 wood-paneled Plymouth Satellite station wagon (the same model the Brady Bunch drove) with a trunk, ice chest, picnic basket, and portable potty, then brave the Interstates with half a dozen backseat drivers (the age spread among us was wide enough that, fortunately for them, my parents never had to take all eight of us at once). We’d set out early in the morning, leaving the comfort of our suburban home in Northern Virginia to face the grueling full-tank increments of sitting in the car for 5-6 hours. (I’m pretty sure Dad’s bladder capacity was higher than that of the gas tank.)

We had several favorite destinations, alternating between them from one summer to the next – Nags Head, North Carolina; York Beach, Maine; or Estes Park, Colorado. As we covered up to 1700 miles on the road, the kids had opportunities to learn about American geography, as well as paternal vocabulary. Dad could let fly with some creative curses, and road trips were a sure way to stoke that creativity.

I remember tracking curse words the same way we tracked license plates in travel bingo. A common schoolyard vulgarity was nothing more than a Pennsylvania or Florida, but the really choice ones – the phrases introducing us to the little-known middle initials of certain deities and other rarities – were like Alaskas to our ears.

Sometimes the curses were inspired by our behavior – sabotaging a baloney sandwich with cardboard or holding up a sign to passing cars that said, “Help! I’ve been kidnapped by polygamists!” Other times it was merely serendipity – a potty spill or a trunk disengaging from the luggage rack (Dad’s rope skills knotwithstanding) and going airborne at 70 mph somewhere along the great I-80 corrider of the Midwest.

Mom wasn’t nearly as entertained by these vocabulary lessons as we were, and went to great lengths to prevent any behavior that would inspire them. To minimize our bad behavior, she resorted to strict seating plans. Two of us would stretch out in the most coveted niche of the station wagon – what we called “the way back.” That location granted a kid several luxuries: full authority over food, beverage and potty disbursement; the ability to look out the tailgate and taunt the drivers unfortunate enough to be stuck behind us (we had yet to learn about road rage); and most importantly, a defensive advantage – those seats were well out of range of the Hand of Dad.

The back seat – a bench that never seemed wide enough, even in our rolling coliseum of a car – held another three. Typically, the youngest was forced to take the middle spot, sacrificing leg room to The Hump. This unwelcome protrusion into the floor of the car was a direct impediment to the comfort of the middle rider, and seemed – to an imaginative young passenger, anyway – to be at least seven feet tall and covered with spikes.

Yet the two outermost siblings had no sympathy for the hump-rider’s predicament, refusing to allow any part of him to drift into their space in his quest for comfort. Nope, the hump-rider was expected to bend his knees, prop his feet on top of the hump, and endure. Woe be to him should he fall asleep and allow his head to fall to one side or the other – that was a direct violation of the boundaries, and often resulted in a makeshift sporting event as the other two siblings volleyed the sleeper’s head back and forth in an effort to avoid being drooled on.

While the back seat was uncomfortable and often contentious, at least it afforded a small modicum of independence relative to the dreaded final spot. The sixth child – usually the one who’d most recently misbehaved – was stuck in front, right between the authority figures. That way, Mom could keep her eyes (and hands, if necessary) on him and reduce the odds of further cursing from the driver’s seat.

That kid had no freedom, but did at least get the full blast of the air conditioning vents. He also got the privilege of working the radio controls, which in retrospect was more of a duty than a privilege. Radio duty entailed listening for the last garbled Abba lyric to give up the ghost to full-blown static, at which point Dad would admit defeat and concede that we had, indeed, driven out of range of that particular AM station – something that happened about every 45 minutes or so.

Once we found a new station and approached its broadcast location, the static would gradually become quieter, and six passengers would wait for a few blessed minutes of clarity as we crossed about a five-mile radius around the radio tower, each secretly hoping their favorite song would be the one on static-free rotation. It’s amazing – not to mention ironic – how three hours of boredom could be alleviated by three minutes of “Seasons in the Sun.”

As the oldest of our brood gradually left to start their own families and plan their own trips, our family vacations evolved. AM radio gave way to the Sony Walkman, Dad’s bladder became weak enough to stop more frequently, we traded in the wagon for a sedan, and the two remaining siblings at home – my younger brother and I – started enjoying the drive a little more.

Yet the worst vacation in our family history occurred during this era. I’ll describe it in greater detail in the next issue; ‘til then, just know that it involved a hurricane, a dead car battery, and Mom’s frozen funds. It also resulted in some cursing that was akin to spotting a license plate from Australia.

[Reprinted from July/August issue of Midtown.]

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