As a child, I used to wonder why my mother never set off on a trip without a really big straw basket filled with kitchen supplies and snacks. I went through that basket one day after my mom and I moved in together and it still held coffee, Vienna sausages, straws, wet wipes, Woolite, paper napkins, salt and pepper, a jar of nuts, plastic cutlery, and I don't recall what else. I asked Mom why she had always carried all that on trips and she looked puzzled and said well her mother had carried the same basket on all trips, plus blankets, and it made a lot of sense.
My grandmother Memaw Hasty was the greatest grandmother a future paralegal could ever have. She was meticulous about being prepared for any situation. Travel by car was seen by her and my grandfather as a grand adventure. Of course, cars back then were prone to flat tires and they might sit on the side of the road for hours if there was no spare, or the jack didn't work, etc. Restaurants were not always available, even if you'd been traveling for hours and were ravenously hungry. My memaw's travel basket meant if she and her fellow travelers were stranded they could survive on the side of the road for hours or even a day or two, if necessary.
While researching for my book Return to Marietta, Mom told me that when her oldest brother Bobby was a baby, Memaw missed her family terribly and a couple of times she drove by herself with infant Bobby from California to Georgia to see the family. She packed the travel basket and blankets and canteens of water, and of course a loaded pistol.
I had forgotten about canteens. They were small tin water bottles carried by soldiers. Before bottled water, one carried a canteen of water. We always had one around the house, though Mom was more fond of a thermos.
I thought I would reminisce a little about how much travel has changed in the last hundred years or so, since the summer is when most of us take long car trips. [below, my mother and grandparents, sometime around 1942 or thereabouts, on a trip]
This is from my mother's memoir, Singing to the Cows:
"Fast food as we know it now did not exist until less than 50 years ago. There were no expressways. We drove on two lane roads, through small towns or through big cities glutted with traffic. So if a family was traveling, they might find something to eat or drink at a gas station – or maybe nothing but a soda and package of peanuts at best. My mother always carried snacks, water to drink, wet wash cloths, first aid supplies, etc. Most often, we had a thermos of sweet tea mixed with fruit juices. For a longer trip, there would be a full meal. Back then, the food was certainly better and cheaper and no waiting in line. I carried big beach towels because they could serve as tablecloths, wraps, etc."
I remember my dad packing the station wagon for us to take on trips and getting all the suitcases in the car, and then his look of consternation when Mom came out carrying the travel basket for him to put in the car. "We don't need all this stuff!" he would fuss.
Sometimes the trips were much shorter - basically day trips. My grandparents loved to picnic. Nowadays people don't picnic that much, probably because of the proliferation of fast food places. Even as a child [1960's] I remember driving back and forth to Atlanta and there was a little restaurant somewhere on Highway 78 where we always stopped and ate, but it was a regular restaurant and there was nothing fast about it.
Anyway, here are some of Mom's picnic memories.
"My parents, as well as the rest of the family, just loved going on picnics. They had a system of what to carry and just how to pack it. This was mostly before Tupperware, Styrofoam, canned drinks, and lots of convenience items. We did have a large thermos jug which would be filled with a combination of sweet tea and fruit juices - delicious! Also, there was no plastic wrap or foil – but waxed paper was fine. The food was about what one would expect: fried chicken, potato salad, ham, fruit salad, slaw, cold biscuits, usually a pot of green beans with ham hock, and someone always brought a wonderful home baked cake, and cobblers, and pies. They kept the old tablecloths for picnics. We always met at the Atlanta area parks that had nice picnic tables, most often with thatched appearing roofs, or a pavilion. The adults would sit around and visit and the young folks would take long walks around the park, after the meal."
I remember Mom sometimes persuading my dad to take picnic foods on trips so we didn't have to eat fast foods, but he was always impatient and grouchy with the whole idea. Standing outside and eating sandwiches out of the trunk while cars whizzed by and Dad grumbled was not fun, at all. (Maybe that's why I have never understood tailgating. Eating out of the trunk of the car just doesn't appeal to me.)
Even just in my lifetime, taking a trip has changed dramatically. I can remember driving for hours without a gas station in sight, and my dad pulling the car over so I could squat and pee, with the car door and Mom hiding me from the sight of anyone coming down the road. We always carried paper napkins and/or toilet paper in the travel basket, for potty emergencies.
My dad taught me how to change a tire when I was 18. I was amazed to learn later that not all girls could change a tire, or check a car's oil, or add water to a car, or use cables to jump start a car. Dad wanted me to be prepared.
Here's what prompted me to write this blog.
My son Michael was asked by a friend, a chef, to drive to SC this weekend and help with the cooking for his niece's quinceañera. Michael had never driven 2.5 hours alone before and I tried not to freak out. I was driving 6 hours back and forth to college at the age of 19, but Michael has just never needed to drive anywhere alone before. I asked him if he wanted to take cold drinks, a flashlight, etc. but he stopped me before I recited a long list of stuff and said "Mom, if I need anything I will just stop and get it?!" like DUH, Mom.
He called me when he reached his destination, as I had asked.
Even today, when I travel I take my version of the travel basket, for emergencies. I advise y'all to do so also. Picnics are nice, too.
#travelinglongago, #twentiethcenturytraveltips, #familypicnictips, #familypicnics, #packingfortrips, #cartripslongago, #cartripsofyesteryear
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