The Great White Nash

Everyone’s hitting the road these days, which, I admit, is an old and odd expression. Emerging from our covid cocoons, we can’t wait to get out of town. See the USA in our, well, SUVs? Or our hybrid Ford or Prius?

All we have to do is key in our destination and sit back while Siri, or someone like her, tells us to turn left in a thousand feet, then right after 2.5 miles.

In the old days we had no Google Maps, or Waze apps. We had fold-up maps from Standard Oil, which never seemed to get back to their original shape. Even us kids learned how to read them, once we figured out which side was up.

The longest trip we ever took was to California to see the grandparents. This was long ago, before Motel 6 and Holiday Inn. Our mode of travel was a white 1955 Nash Ambassador, a roomy, four-door sedan whose passenger seat reclined so it was flush with the back seat.

The plan was to drive straight through to Los Angeles. We would stop for gas, bathroom breaks, and occasionally breakfast. The rest of the time we would eat and sleep in the car.

Besides having sleeping space on the reclined passenger seat, my father designed a wooden panel with a mattress that extended from the dashboard to the rear window. This made a bunk bed where my mother or father could rest while the other one was driving.

Did I say there were six of us, parents, three boys and one girl? As you can imagine, even in the roomy Nash, things were a bit crowded. But at least there was room for us, if we took turns, to stretch out and sleep.

For food my mother had packed sandwiches, apples and bread sticks. The bread sticks were whole wheat, made without yeast. The shape of cigars, they were packed into tins. Whenever my mother baked, she always included a batch of bread sticks. It was our universal food, the staff of life, rolled, compressed, portable and nourishing. I can still recall their taste as I munched on them, alternating with a bite of apple.

We left on a Saturday night, the great white Nash tunneling into the darkness as we headed west. Sometime in the next day we got on Route 66 south of Chicago. Then came a blur of corn fields and the monotony of Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas. When we stopped for gas, we’d line up at the restroom while the attendant filled up the gas tank, cleaned bugs off the windshield and checked the oil and water.

Next came the high deserts of New Mexico and Arizona. Then, all of a sudden, my father calling out, “Wake up, kids. We’re crossing the Hoover Dam.”

As did the Joads in Grapes of Wrath, we crossed the Mojave Desert in darkness, ascended the high pass and coasted into the fertile valleys of California. After two days and three nights, we had arrived. Like bedraggled moths we emerged into a whole new world of sunshine and fruit trees.

One last stop at the gas station restrooms to get our faces washed and hair slicked down before we pulled into the suburban driveway of our grandparents. Ready or not, we had arrived.