Road Trip: 1950 Evelyn McAmis Bales   © Copyright 2002 by Evelyn McAmis Bales

The events in this story took place the summer I was 8 years old.  My father had owned 2 or 3 used cars, but during WorldWar II we did not have a car. For years prior to 1950, only one family on our road owned a car.  Owning a car was a life-changing event for us as it opened up a whole new set of experiences  that we had not had before..   This story tells of one such experience of our family going a vacation to Florida. in 1950.

In 1950, World War II had been over long enough for consumer goods to become more readily available after their scarcity during the war. We had gotten a refrigerator after being on a waiting list for two years, but sometimes Mama would forget we had it and go outside to cool chocolate fudge in the snow like she did in the old days. Early in the morning on a wintry day in January 1950, my father and my twelve-year-old brother left for the local Chevrolet dealer's showroom to buy my father's first new car. He had owned two or three used cars briefly before the war. Mother and the other four of us children stayed home to wait for their return. It seemed one of the longest days of my eight-year-old life. Mother was cooking pork tenderloin for dinner which she had to reheat several times thinking each time they would return soon. She had biscuits ready for the oven, but was not about to bake them until she saw the wh! ites of their eyes. Finally, in the late afternoon, a new white Chevrolet with my father at the wheel arrived at the bottom of our hill. My other three siblings and I raced down the driveway to see this new wonder.

Oh, the smell of the new car, and its white paint glistened like new snow in sunlight! Oh, the dreams it evoked. Why, anything was possible in this bright chariot. We each sat at the wheel, turning it as if driving ourselves, dreaming of all the places we would go.

Mama asked Daddy why it took all day to buy a car. Daddy began to tell in great detail how he finally got the dealer down to $1750, which was all he intended to pay. We were fascinated with Daddy's story of arguing with the salesman until he got the price down just where he wanted it. He explained that the car was a Chevrolet Fleetline Special, six-cylinder, straight drive.

Soon after its purchase, we all loaded up in the car for a drive. Daddy drove to East Tennessee State College as it was called then, and said, "One of these days, all of you are going to go to college." Imagine that! Nobody in our family had ever gone to college. Our grandfather was a public school teacher, but he was trained by other school teachers in Greene County where he grew up. That campus looked a mystical place; we had never seen such large buildings with names we had never heard, like administration building and dormitory. Daddy claimed it for us that day.

Spring came and went that year without my remembering anything specific about it. I know I finished third grade that May because I have the report card to prove it, but something new was about to happen that we would measure the years of our childhood from for a lifetime. Mama and Daddy announced that we were going to Florida on a vacation. We had never been on a vacation before, especially one that involved going anywhere besides visiting relatives. We got the encyclopedia out and looked up Florida. We would see the Atlantic Ocean and Ponce de Leon's Fountain of Youth at St. Augustine!

Mama was busy the whole month of June making shorts and sunbacked dresses for us to wear to Florida. Of course, we all had to have bathing suits. We bought those at J. C. Penney's. Mine was red and tied at the back of my neck It was a shapeless thing that accentuated my pot belly, but very stylish for the time. I think that was the year we got pajamas, too. Soon we were all outfitted. No small feat as there were two parents and five children to be fitted and clothed.

Finally, everything was packed for the trip. Our two-year old sister rode in the front between Mama and Daddy. The other four of us rode in the back seat wearing our new shorts that Mama had made. We were in fine fettle for perhaps half an hour. Then the trouble started. "Mama, make him quit leaning on me." "Mama, his leg is touching mine." "Mama, she's rolling her eyes to make me mad." In retrospect, we should have known better. Mama was always able to prepare for any eventuality. This day was no exception. She whipped her little keen peach tree switch out from somewhere, leaned over the back of her seat and swiped across eight legs below where the new shorts stopped. Mama was going to enjoy this vacation come hell or disgruntled kids. Mama didn't ask who started the ruckus. She didn't care who started the ruckus. "Let that be a lesson to you," she said. "Anytime one ! of you feels like starting trouble, that's what's going to happen. All of you are going to get a whipping." She had us right where she wanted us-all in one place so one flick of the switch would get us all at once. After that keen reminder, we commenced to settle the arguments among ourselves.

Once we got through the mountains of Western North Carolina, Daddy started driving 60 miles an hour. My older sister says she sang My Faith Looks Up to Thee all the way because she knew Daddy was going to get us all killed driving at such a pace. We younger siblings were totally oblivious to any danger as we were still young enough to trust our father completely. I do remember Mother biting her nails some..

The first day we made it almost to Jacksonville. We spent the night in a motel-another new experience for us along with sleeping in pajamas. All I remember about Jacksonville is waiting in line for the drawbridge to come back down so we could cross the St. Johns River. That and being afraid the thing would open up and swallow us while our car was on top of it. Finally, driving down Highway A1-A, we got our first glimpse of the ocean. Daddy pulled the car onto the shoulder of the road, and we all ran up a sand dune to look. My older brother ran right down to touch the sea, but I was terrified of all that water and noise. At this same stop we were also introduced to the sulphur water flowing from the fountains along the highway. Having seen one too many western movies, we decided if we had to drink poisoned water we would surely die before we got back to Tennessee.

We climbed back in the car to resume our drive to Daytona. Unfortunately, the car got stuck in the sand as we tried to get back on the highway. We learned later that that is a common tourist mistake. Before long, though, some kindly natives pushed our car out of the sand and we were on our way. No matter how much we begged, Daddy would not pull off on the shoulder again.

At Daytona we donned our new bathing suits. I was embarrassed to see Mama in a bathing suit. I had never seen her in anything so skimpy before. What was she thinking? I suppose nobody saw her as a sex symbol with five children in tow. Perhaps a dominatrix, though, with that peach tree switch in her hand. Our first time in the surf, a wave knocked us over; and I thought my little sister had drowned. Enough of that water that hits back for me. I've seen the ocean, tasted its briny elixir and felt its bottom on mine. I decided hat would do fine for me in this life.

I was truly enamored by the beautiful senoritas dressed in long gowns each with a lace mantilla on her head who guided us through the fort at St. Augustine culminating in our very own drink from the Fountain of Youth. My sisters and I dressed in long gowns and window-curtain mantillas for years afterward playing "Fountain of Youth." in the smokehouse.

Daddy's intention was to take us all the way to Key West, but hurricanes or the threat of them have caused many a Florida vacation to be cut short. Mother, being terrified of natural disasters, was immediately ready to turn back when she heard there was the possibility of a hurricane. Our last night in Florida was spent in a motel somewhere along the Indian River with my thirteen-year old brother begging to go home.

Once the car was headed north, Daddy became a homing pigeon. The backseat passengers were in a sunburn-induced stupor. I don't know what happened to my little sister. I have no memory of her after the wave upended her at Daytona. The sun does weird things to your head. Mama and Daddy's legs were sunburned through the windshield. They weren't speaking. Our Chevy Fleetline did not have air conditioning. I have blocked out every memory of that return trip except for an overnight stop at a crab orchard stone motel thirty feet off Highway 19E in Burnsville, North Carolina.. The brain goes into preservation mode when reality becomes too difficult to bear. I remember feeling very important in fourth grade that fall when the teacher asked us to tell the class what we did on our summer vacation. Like a seasoned traveler, I put the best possible slant on the story; but it would be twenty years before any of us tho! ught to go to Florida again.

But I have not told the whole story. The trip to Florida was a benchmark in our lives opening the eyes of five children, and perhaps their parents, to the possibilities in this world. Geography took on a new significance for us. We were able to find ourselves in the world.. Mother taught us to read the road maps. She pointed out where each river began and where it emptied into a larger body of water. Mother was a voracious reader who knew about drawbridges and sulphur water although she had never experienced either one. She knew pelicans and flamingoes and many of the shore birds. Daddy knew the trees and vegetation of the states we drove through, knew the gray stuff hanging in the trees was Spanish moss. We soaked up this new information like sponges, dreamed of all the places we would go and all the things we would see. Our childhood voyage was education at its best with parents embracing the teachable moment and childr! en eagerly taking it in. Knowing Mother had the keen peach tree switch sure helped to keep us focused.

Evelyn McAmis Bales is a writer who has been published many times in the Appalachian region.  Most recently, two of her poems were performed by the West Palm Beach Repertory Company in a play called Tapestry which was composed of the voices of women poets.  Last spring she  received a grant from the Tennessee Arts Commission to publish an anthology of
Kingsport women writers.

In her day job, which often interferes with her extracurricular activities, she  is the Vocational Assessment Coordinator for Sullivan County Schools.  She has also taught  English for many years specializing in programs for at-risk kids.  Her lesson plans for sophomore English were published by the Upper East Tennessee Educational Cooperative in 1992 for use in the
optional high school programs.

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