It’s getting near Christmas. That’s family time, which got me thinking about our family trips. Mom and Dad wanted us to experience a lot – and it made a big impression. And since it’s near Christmas – here’s the link to my Mom’s reminiscence of her childhood Christmas – Christmas Story
Travelling
One of the best parts of growing up in my family was travelling. From when I was a kid until I was in my twenties, we did the “annual” summer vacation pilgrimage to Hilton Beach on St. Joseph’s Island in Canada. I remember when I was really young, getting my own “spot” in the back of the 1963 Ford Fairlane Station Wagon, the kind with the “woody” sides. It had the “traditional” Don Dahlman license plate on it: DD-19.
Mom and Dad were in the front seats. Dad drove and tried to stay awake. Mom had the maps and the itinerary, and was in charge of navigating and keeping Dad from sleeping. My sisters were in the back seat. Then there was all the luggage, then ME in the third back seat that faced the back window. I thought it was so cool to have my own seat and my own space. I think my sisters were happy to have all the luggage in between!!
Eventually my older sister Terry went to college, and I graduated to the back seat, and ultimately to the driver’s seat. Dad had acrophobia, and hated the “new” bridges at Mackinac and the Canadian Border. Even before I had my license, I was driving those bridges for Dad.
Big Cities
But we also went around the United States, often with Dad as he was selling TV shows. There were short trips: to New York City for sightseeing and to Chicago for the weekend to see the museums. My first trip to Washington DC was in 1964. We went in January, and the military hats were still arranged around the new gravesite for President Kennedy at Arlington Cemetery. I remember the month, because we visited one of Dad’s business friends, who lived in Virginia. His son, about my age, had the day off school for Robert E. Lee’s birthday. I was a “Northern” kid, and didn’t get having a Confederate General’s birthday off. Today kids still have that same day off of school in most places – it’s Martin Luther King Day.
College Tour
And then there were the “college trips”, the New England swing through the Ivy Leagues for my sister, and later for me. My favorite story: Dad was taking courses at Harvard, and Mom was taking my sister Terry to see Wellesley College. She decided to leave my middle sister Pat and I at a movie while they went to see the campus. I was nine, Pat was fourteen. Mom dropped us off , for what she though was the World War II “flick” with Henry Fonda, The Battle of the Bulge.
But it was a shady movie theatre on Harvard Square. We accidently went to the wrong show, where the double feature was The Sleeping Car Murders, and Doulos (roughly translated – the finger man). I always thought Mom sent us to dirty movies. With a little research I now know they weren’t porn shows, just “film noires” from France; gangster movies with some nudity (and in French with subtitles). But if you were nine, it was definitely – well – more than I was ready for.
On the Cape
We spent that summer on Cape Cod, going to the beach every day. I became a “professional” body surfer, a boy without fear in the Atlantic waves. We stayed at a fisherman’s cottage, which I thought was awesome. That the walls were “insulated” with and smelled like clam shells and the washing machine named George turned on and off on its own schedule didn’t bother me a bit. It was the summer of 1966 – the summer of Hot Time, Summer in the City on the AM Radio by the Lovin’ Spoonful. Every time I hear that song, I’m taken back to that summer and the sea.
One memorable night we took the station wagon to the drive-in to see The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming. It was a comedy movie about a small New England town where a damaged Russian submarine came into the fishing port. The town was a lot like the Cape Cod villages we were in. But the best part was when the fog rolled in off the coast, and we had to watch the show on the shifting “clouds”.
Home in England
There was some travel overseas as well. Mom was English, with lots of family at home. So we went to England several times. I think my sister Terry said it best: with Mom, England was like a “fairy tale” world. She had family scattered all over the place, and we were welcomed everywhere we went. Whether it was watching the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace, helping on the farm in Cambridge, or wandering through the ancient monument at Stonehenge (before the fences went up, you could go up and touch the stones); England felt like home.
Which meant that France felt like a real strange place. We were in Paris when I was thirteen, in 1970. The United States wasn’t the most popular nation during the Vietnam War, and Parisians were generally rude to tourists anyway. We felt isolated, and my ninth grade French wasn’t appreciated much – except for the drunk guy outside the Notre Dame Cathedral. “Viva les Americains” he cried as he slurred the directions to our next stop. He was drunk, and talking slow, exactly what I needed to understand him.
We abandoned Paris early, and headed back across the Channel to Dover. Mom’s sister Eileen and her family lived down the coast in Eastbourne, and Uncle Reg was always ready for a walk to “Beachy Head”. Then it was on down the coast to Exeter and Auntie Olive and Uncle Stan. They were, as I remember, prim and proper, but still fun as we travelled to the small villages in the isolated and mysterious highlands called The Moors. Beatrix Potter, author of Peter Rabbit, had her cottage there. We were expecting Peter Rabbit himself to answer the door.
Driving
Dad was driving on the “wrong side” of the road in England, where the steering wheel is on the right side of the car. That wasn’t a problem on the bigger roads, the M’s (interstates) or A’s (state highways). But on the smaller roads Dad always seemed to forget that whole side of the car on the left side, the side that was on the other side when he was in the US. Our job was to yell “CLOSE” when Dad was about to take out the hedges or rock walls on the left side. It was fun as a kid, but when I got older and drove a van in England, a had a whole lot more sympathy for him.
There’s always travel stories to relate, and maybe I’ll get to more someday. But meanwhile, it’s time to get going. The Jeep is warming up, melting the hard frost on the windshield, and there’s pre-Christmas errands to run. The license plate on the back – DD-19. I know Dad would be pleased it’s still in the family.
