Are We There Yet
Traveling with children is a challenge.
I don’t remember too much about me as a child going on vacation, just a few
snatches here and there.
Every year we went to Batavia,
New York to visit family. We went by car and many of those trips were before
interstate highways. It would take all day to travel from Gloucester City, NJ
to Batavia. My brother and I must have had some entertainment. For me it was probably
books or coloring books and crayons. I remember that all radio stations were
country/western. We would always stop for a picnic lunch about halfway on a not
busy road. I remember sometimes it was next to railroad tracks and sometimes a
stream. We would have sandwiches, if made at home - cheese (mom didn’t want us
getting food poisoning). There must have been coolers, I just don’t remember.
If we made sandwiches at the rest stop it was canned meat – spam or deviled
ham. Of course we had to have baked beans, cold right from the can. This was mom’s
favorite and the first word she spoke as a baby – even before mama or dada. I
don’t think I’ve had cold baked beans since for no particular reason. We would
be excited for progress when we passed Painted Post and knew we were close when
we reached Geneseo.
About every two years or so we
went to Tampa, FL to visit my grandparents if they hadn’t been to see us in a
couple of years. Today people routinely go to Florida but in the 50s and 60s rarely.
It took Disney World to make Florida a destination for those of us in the
northeast. I don’t remember driving to Florida that often back then. There was
no I95 so small roads through towns for a 3 day trip. One time during a winter
trip my brother was a baby, and he came down with chickenpox and the doctor said
no problem going but keep him warm. My mom kept him in a snowsuit during the
day and a different one at night while the daytime one aired out. By the time we got to Tampa he was covered
with pox from head to toe. Usually, it was a trip by train or bus with my mom.
Dad used his vacation week to go to Batavia with us. Once when I had cereal for
breakfast on the train it was awful – they put cream on the cereal. Another
time at one of the stops it was pouring rain, and a boy came on selling peanuts.
We bought a bag and didn’t think anything of the bag being wet since it was
heavy rain. To our surprise they were boiled peanuts, something I never had and
haven’t missed since. Some of these trips were during segregation or the civil
rights era. Having not experienced segregation it was a surprise when crossing
into Virginia and the bus stopped and all Black people were told to move to the
back of the bus. At a bus stop somewhere in the south we got off the bus to go
into the station food counter and stopped when all eyes were turned on us. We
went into the side for “colored”. That’s when we noticed the water fountains on
the platform were labeled “white” and “colored”. Then after protests started on
another bus trip my mom and brother sat in the front seats and I behind them. I
was about 10 or 11. A Black woman came on and sat next to me. She was very
nice. The thing I marveled at was she had very large feet. Little did I know
that my adult feet would match hers. I was too little to realize that her
sitting in the second row of the bus and sharing the row with me, a white child
she was making a statement. My family was fine with the situation but I’m sure
there were some on the bus who didn’t like the changes happening. Another time
when we went to Tampa on the train, the trip started out with some drama. My
brother, Terry was preschool age and terrified of large buildings. We got on
the train at 30th St. Station in Philadelphia. My mom had to drag
him through the station with him screaming at the top of his lungs.
My children’s first trip out west
was when Travis was 18mos and Sean 4. It’s a long car trip. The places we
visited were fun and sometimes with surprises but the drive itself was torture.
Impossible to count the “are we there yet” and how it seems like the kids need to
see every bathroom on the route. Coming home Bill said “How about I pull into
the next airport and you, and the kids fly home? I’ll drive the rest of the way
by myself.”
Traveling with kids definitely makes us want a vacation from our vacations.
#traveling with children,
#Batavia NY, #Tampa Florida, #Segregation, #Civil rights protests, #Arlene
Moore, #Arlene Baker
