SUMMER TIME
Summer months remind me of vacations when I was growing up in Texas. Daddy was the only breadwinner and for many years he had a three-week paid vacation. Beginning the year I turned ten, we spent those three weeks, usually in July or August, traveling.
We started near home with Arkansas. I still have fond memories of those beautiful Ozark Mountains, picnics by the rivers or creeks throughout the state, and sleeping in clean, cheerful nine-dollar-per-night motel rooms. Though those vacations eventually extended to cover forty of the then-forty-eight states, those early trips remain my favorite.
I guess my parents were brave. Over the years, they set off in an assortment of vehicles packed to the gill with clothes, food and kids. There really had to be a method to packing for all of us to enjoy three weeks away from home. And the eating alone was a miracle.
Mama prepared for hungry people. Daddy built a special box for the food that fit in the big trunk of those 1950 Fords. We weren't vacationers with a lot of money so we had to economize in some way. That's where Mama's culinary techniques came in.
With the grocery box and a large Thermos(TM) cooler, she managed to prepare cereal for breakfast each morning after we ran out of her delicious homemade cinnamon rolls and a variety of sandwiches with greens and tomato salad for lunch (dinner in the South). Sometimes diner (super in the South) was a treat--fried chicken or meatloaf or hot stew in some samll town cafe or, if we had a motel with kitchen, a homecooked meal. Once we stayed in a small town in Kansas in a cabin that offered a grill; Mama served an assortment of meats--hotdogs, hamburgers, large sausage--along with fresh corn-on-the-cob grilled in the husks over those hot coals. And for dessert and snacks, a huge tin container was filled to the brim with large homemade oatmeal-raisin cookies among other kinds. Somehow that "cookie jar" never seemed to empty until the last day of vacation; I now realize mama kept filling it with bounty from bakeries along the way.
My love of history and travel began with these trips. The experiences are still valuable, the memories sweet. In the Ozarks, I discovered trout fishing, quilts for sale hanging on porch railings and friendly mountain people. In Tennessee I saw what coal mining did to a town--turning the houses, the grass and men's faces black with soot. In Washington, DC I learned about our nation's glorious history and at Wounded Knee I saw it tarnished.
My thirst for travel and knowledge hasn't ceased. I've vacationed in all the fifty states and half of the world, prowled through museums, gallerys and antique stores, stopped to read historical markers along strange roads, and tasted the food of many diverse regions.
I haven't got anything planned for this summer but the roads are beckoning. In October I will hit them again and continue my quest--to never grow too old to be enthusiastic about learning through seeing new places and new people.
****
Where would you travel if you could go anywhere inthe world?
We started near home with Arkansas. I still have fond memories of those beautiful Ozark Mountains, picnics by the rivers or creeks throughout the state, and sleeping in clean, cheerful nine-dollar-per-night motel rooms. Though those vacations eventually extended to cover forty of the then-forty-eight states, those early trips remain my favorite.
I guess my parents were brave. Over the years, they set off in an assortment of vehicles packed to the gill with clothes, food and kids. There really had to be a method to packing for all of us to enjoy three weeks away from home. And the eating alone was a miracle.
Mama prepared for hungry people. Daddy built a special box for the food that fit in the big trunk of those 1950 Fords. We weren't vacationers with a lot of money so we had to economize in some way. That's where Mama's culinary techniques came in.
With the grocery box and a large Thermos(TM) cooler, she managed to prepare cereal for breakfast each morning after we ran out of her delicious homemade cinnamon rolls and a variety of sandwiches with greens and tomato salad for lunch (dinner in the South). Sometimes diner (super in the South) was a treat--fried chicken or meatloaf or hot stew in some samll town cafe or, if we had a motel with kitchen, a homecooked meal. Once we stayed in a small town in Kansas in a cabin that offered a grill; Mama served an assortment of meats--hotdogs, hamburgers, large sausage--along with fresh corn-on-the-cob grilled in the husks over those hot coals. And for dessert and snacks, a huge tin container was filled to the brim with large homemade oatmeal-raisin cookies among other kinds. Somehow that "cookie jar" never seemed to empty until the last day of vacation; I now realize mama kept filling it with bounty from bakeries along the way.
My love of history and travel began with these trips. The experiences are still valuable, the memories sweet. In the Ozarks, I discovered trout fishing, quilts for sale hanging on porch railings and friendly mountain people. In Tennessee I saw what coal mining did to a town--turning the houses, the grass and men's faces black with soot. In Washington, DC I learned about our nation's glorious history and at Wounded Knee I saw it tarnished.
My thirst for travel and knowledge hasn't ceased. I've vacationed in all the fifty states and half of the world, prowled through museums, gallerys and antique stores, stopped to read historical markers along strange roads, and tasted the food of many diverse regions.
I haven't got anything planned for this summer but the roads are beckoning. In October I will hit them again and continue my quest--to never grow too old to be enthusiastic about learning through seeing new places and new people.
****
Where would you travel if you could go anywhere inthe world?
posted by Barb | 1:08 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home