I have been so lucky to retain many of my child hood memories. I have also been as equally lucky to forget some as well.
I remember breaking my arm falling from the monkey bars. I remember drinking the original Pepsi Clear. I remember dancing like a girly-boy in my superman pajamas to “Just like a prayer”. I remember the day Kurt Cobain died. I remember punching through the window at my instigating sister. ( Yes You Sister!)
But this post is focusing on something special. Something many of us have had to endure.
The proverbially Family Road Trip.
For those of you who aren’t aware I was born and raised here in Phoenix AZ. Didn’t do much traveling as a kid except for these summer family road trips and 1 memorable plane ride to Disneyland where I thought I saw Jesus in the clouds. Again, a story for another blog.
These reoccurring trips happened every summer where my family of 5 would pile into the car and head the 12 hour journey to a little town called McGill Nevada. Yes, it is as big as it sounds and I will get to that.
Growing up we didn’t have a ton of money so we weren’t by any means living the life of luxury. The family car was an old Grey Datsun B210 hatchback. (Funny side story about the car… One day my dad took me and the instigating sister out for Dairy Queen for ice cream. As he pulls up to the window to pay, he leans back in his seat to pull out his wallet. Out of nowhere there this loud pop and the seat gives out on him unfolding completely flat against the back seat. Followed by me and my sister arguing who got to hold the seat up with their feet as dad drove us home.)
But one thing about this car that I can remember vividly is that it did not have Air Conditioning. Anyone who has heard about Phoenix knows that summers of extremely brutal to not have AC in. So with that factor we would always start the journey in the middle of the night to “beat the heat”. Yeah…. Ok. So its hot as hell and there is 5 of us crammed into this 2 door hatchback. Well my mom would always want us to sleep on the way. So she literally would make us stuff blankets in what little leg room we had until it was full enough where we could fold our bodies in half at the waist and lay on heads on the blankets and sleep. Needless to say, that sucked.
The car ride was always an adventure. Oddly enough those trips are the first time I got to hear Jim Rohn audio tapes….who was best known at the time for his catch phrase “Of Couuuuurrrrrrssseeee” is his country twang.
But on this particular trip as I lay folded forward sleeping on a bundle of blankets, I abruptly awaken to my father coughing heavily which was concerning in itself. But what made it even more freighting was my mother SCREAMING at him to “Stop Choking” Repeatedly and more and more angrily as if my father was chocking just to piss her off. Or that he could magically stop the fact that he was choking. Any guess what he was choking on??? Yup, thats right. Pork Rinds.
And if memory serves me correctly…. once he was done chocking, he continued pulling more rinds out from the bag. A sort of “getting back on the horse” type of mentality to show those rinds who was boss. And I have to blame… I mean THANK him for passing that trait down to me.
So our journey continues, and so do the memories. Like stopping at the same R Place gas station in the middle of nowhere where we all had to get out and try to pee. But by hour 11 we were all ready to be there already.
Lets talk about McGill. The town is a very small town and was once a copper mining community. We would drive there because that’s where my parents were from and that’s where my Aunts, Uncles and Grandparents lived. The town had no stop lights, one main street and the street names where letters. My grandpa for example lived on the corner of 1st ave G. And I think it only went up to live ave K??? Im not too sure of the exact end but you get the point. It was a very small town.
So antsy kids wanting to be there we would always compete to see the town first. Because it was a mining town there was this huge smoke stack you could see from miles away. My sisters would always see the damn thing first but I always made sure to be the little brother that I am and say “No, I did”. Cuz Im a good sibling like that.
So we’d finally pull up to Grandpa’s and run through his metal gate. I still to this day can hear the sound of it opening and then slamming shut. I know any of my family who reads this knows exactly what I am talking about.
So we would be there for about 2 weeks around the 4th of July and would spend our time with family. Me and my cousin mike would hunt horny toads up on the railroad tracks and see if we could catch any for keep. Or we would run down to the elementary school and play on the slides. The baseball field where I first played little league as a Baltimore Oriole. There was also a town pool which was nothing but a pond with guppies and water snakes. The nights we would spend on the trampoline with as many family members who could fit. On the actual 4th of July holiday we would wake up and the Mormon church would have a 4th of July Pancake breakfast and I think they still do. Then we would all pile in and head to Ely (Next Town Over) for the town parade. That night my uncle would load us up in his truck and take us out to the desert where the railroad would put on a firework show for us all to watch.
As the holiday came to a close, it would be time for us to head home. But before we could, my eldest (and wisest) sister would have to get her deep friend treat of Piccadillies. Which I think are some sort of pickle chip or something? I’m not exactly sure and she will be pissed that I don’t know this. Forgive me.
But I do remember the one time she tried to bring a mason jar of guppies she caught at the McGill pool back with us. They made it all the way to a pit stop A&W restaurant where they got left in the car and baked to death…. Don’t worry, we did the right thing and held a funeral under a tree in the parking lot.
There are many more nuances and memories that I could share about those times and that place but we will let this story end for now…. With the memories of Pork Rinds, Picadillies and dead guppies, may they rest in peace.
"The Epitome Of Me" 