54 years ago, my Mom loaded her three sons into our brand-new Chevy station wagon and lit out from Virginia to California to Michigan and back. Maw called it 62 days under canvas.
A few summers back, I put together this blog to mark the 50th anniversary. I’d intended it to be nostalgic. Now that the world is where it is, this has taken on all-new significance — the great outdoors, exploring new cultures, lots of personal interaction. Nostalgic indeed.
It’s is a day-by-day recounting of the nine week trip, including excerpts from Maw’s diary (with permission), old-timey paper maps and AAA tour books purchased on Ebay, as well as photos and impressions of those who were transported and transformed.
I asked her, as part of this exercise, why did she do it. Simply, “I wanted to go to California.” And so she and her boys did.
Maw passed away three years ago, but thanks to the internet–and my heart–her spirit lives on.
Note: This is NOT a new road trip. It is a recounting of the one that happened 50 years ago.
Driver, cook, nightly construction supervisor, navigator, personal shopper, cruise director, protector, provider, saint, miracle worker. And it was all her idea!
I asked her recently: Why? Her answer: “I wanted to go to California, and this is what I had to do to get there.”
Dad, Pop
Pop hopped a flight to LA to meet up with the rest of the family for a few weeks of our west coast swing. As Mom explains, he simply couldn’t take the whole summer off. Dad was an avid and talented photographer, so his time on the road is better documented that other times. Alas, there is not a rich photographic record of the trip.
Tim, Timbo.
Age 15. The eldest brother. Tim was, dare I say, an obsessive fisherman, and I learned recently from Maw that she selected campgrounds based on access to fishing. Enabler!
He came through in spades! More than thirty documented fishing expeditions in 62 days. But I don’t think we (or, I) used them for sustenance.
Mike, Miko.
Age 8. In her diary, Mom sometimes refers to Mike and me as “the little ones.” Um, okay. It does appear that we were paired most of the time for swimming and gofer-ing. And I guess we were little. So, whatever. Mike required weekly allergy shots in whatever town or crossroads we happened to find ourselves, events Mom records religiously in her diary.
Doug. Age 4. Cute as a friggin’ button! Otherwise mostly dead weight.
I provided some full-sensory comic relief in the form of car sickness, getting lost and upending pee jars. You are welcome.
The Tent. No frills, unless you count the smell of raw, musty nature. To this day I remember the sensation of rain and storms on the other side of that thin piece of canvas. LOVED IT.
The Chevy Kingswood. Mom and Dad purchased a brand new station wagon for the trip. On stormy nights it also served as our refuge. Behind this we pulled a trailer that carried the tent, stove, chuck box and more.
Mom’s Diary. My bible for reconstructing the places, faces and times we had. Thanks to Mom for keeping it, and thanks to Mom for letting us share it here.
Time change helped getting us up early. Showered and washed my hair. Reached the Arnolds about noon, had lunch and the boys played until about 4. (Mike’s shot) Got to the Meramac State Park and set up. The boys played in the river. Exhausted.
This terse observation belies what must have been an “arrival” for Mom. I hope she took a moment to reflect on this achievement: In two weeks she had safely transported her three boys across the country and delivered them to an ocean they’d never seen before. She battled the elements and endured the sometimes-cross nature of boys, and there were still plenty of surprises and challenges ahead.
I’d like to think, as she looked out at the Pacific that evening, she was thrilled to be back in Southern California, a place she revered since her short time there as a teenager. To this day I think Mom identifies as a Californian; a lot of us do.
The champale probably tasted especially good that night.
Foggy ‘till late. Bought groceries. We all went to San Luis Obispo and visited the mission. The boys swam and then took a long walk up the beach. Doug and I cooked supper. Mike shut his finger in the car door.
Marge Binder, July 11, 1969
When I first read this entry from Maw’s diary and saw, “Mike shut his finger in the door,” my reaction was, “Yep, that’s Mike.”
I felt bad, for sure, but things like this were always happening to my brother Mike. I think he’d agree today: thus has been his existence. Mike is the middle child, and he possesses much of the pseudo-psycho baggage that goes with that (along with the virtues like leadership and modesty). But that’s just the beginning.
I don’t think my joints do that anymore. Now I know why.
If you’ve been following this blog, you’ve seen that we stopped every seven days in one little town or another to get Mike an allergy shot. Later on in the trip, he’ll get poison ivy and visit a hospital in Illinois for an ear situation. In the years to come, Mike will suffer bouts with more allergies and god-awful plantar warts. Being in the room when he was having one of those things removed was terrifying for me; I can’t imagine what it was like for him.
(Mike and I share a few bum knees too, but I am grateful that our family didn’t suffer anything more nefarious. Very grateful.)
In her diary, Mom seems to cluster Mike and me together in many situations. Even though he was eight and I was four, Mom referred to us as “the little guys” in one entry. We swam while Tim fished. While Tim fished we swam. And on and on.
The scout befriends a native.
But Mike and I were very different kids. He excelled in math and science. I relished the liberal arts and sports. He was obsessed with “Star Trek.” I made appointment TV with “Wide World of Sports.” He studied his ass off. I did what I needed to get by. Mike became an Eagle Scout. He put himself through the University of Virginia (which he didn’t have to do) by driving buses around Charlottesville. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa, got several advanced degrees, researched at CERN in Switzerland and then got another degree in architecture.
I have a BA in English.
We are no longer the little guys. For 50 years we’ve charted different courses, chased different dreams, and we’ve somehow got more in common now than ever. We are both creative and artistic, curious, considerate and compassionate. All traits we no doubt learned from Mom.
Yet, differences remain. I consider my big brother Mike to be one of the most honest, modest, sincere and hard working persons I have known in my life. Something I can only aspire to.
Dad took the photo of Mom on Pismo Beach 50 years ago. It is my favorite and a family treasure. It captures what Mom must have been feeling after four weeks in the car with three boys and a tent. When I think about her looking at Dad behind his camera, she was definitely having a real moment: funny, exasperated, resigned, authentic. And, of course, she’s beautiful!
Every Christmas Eve almost ’til his passing, Dad would put together a slide show, usually four or five carousels full of his latest photos and the classics. When this one hit the screen — which it did every single year — the room would light up. Oohs and aahs and hoots and whistles. Even now, it lights up my day
More normal—cold. Rented a spot at the deluxe campground and they swam in the pool and we all took showers. Jim and I walked up the beach.
Mike has a friend next door named Mark—6 ½ yrs old, several inches taller than Mike and over 100 lbs. Took them on a hike with the ranger. Went to town to buy groceries and have a doctor look at Tim’s rash. Swam and went to the camp fire. 100° by the river but nice & cool at night.
Marge Binder, July 19, 1969
Okay, I’ll admit the headline “Tim Sees a Doctor” seems a little unexceptional. Thing is, it’s huge. Tim avoided doctors his whole life, so I don’t think he went willingly back in 1969, especially for a measly rash.
In his life, Tim experienced several injuries that would require anything from stitches to not-simple surgery. The ones I can remember from the last 20 years or so: he got bit by a copperhead snake and watched his hand swell and turn black, waiting several days to seek treatment; he dropped a fish-cleaning knife into his foot, severing a major tendon and was goaded by Dad into finally seeing a doctor, only to forego the kind of therapy he needed to heal; a few years before he passed, he twisted his knee in an unfortunate encounter with his car on an icy driveway, so he used a cane from then on rather than get help.
That was Tim, and he was proud of it.
In the book we made for our parents’ 60th anniversary, Tim contributed an essay about one of these doctor-avoidance episodes, something I called “Medical Attention Deficit Disorder.” Here is an excerpt:
Until the last few years, fish-cleaning was done on a makeshift table in the garage. In 2002, I was butchering a bountiful day’s catch with a murderous and electric fish-fillet knife. Between salmon, this implement fell — while switched on — off the table and onto my right instep, slicing a tendon neatly in two, and causing blood to gush. It also caused a vocal argument between Boss, who advised a trip to the emergency room, and I, who wanted to wrap it in gauze and duct-tape and go fishing the next morning. As Captain of the ship, Boss’s will prevailed. Besides sutures, the local doctor advised surgical splicing of the tendon, which I declined when told this would keep me off the water for several precious days.
Got up and drove to Howard Prairie Lake near Ashland, stopping at a good store & bakery at Medford. The kids swam.
Marge Binder, July 22, 1969
Could this be the last photo of Tim with his glasses? Maybe.
Mom must have submitted her diary entry before the drama that unfolded later that night. My brother Tim, a gifted raconteur, was holding forth around the campfire after dinner, doing impressions, mimicking the Borscht Belt greats, “owning the room.”
At some point, he slung around and — phwoosh — off flung his glasses into the fire. While we all reacted in horror (and a bit of “what an showman!”), Tim went about trying to retrieve them. But they were already literally toast.
To a Binder boy, lost or broken glasses meant humiliation, like getting a C+ on a test (Tim was the exception to this analogy). Lost glasses was just one more piece of tinder to stoke our raging insecurities. Our childhoods were littered with such spectacles (pun intended), some involving snowball fights, scrapes at school or simple stupidity.
On top of the initial sting of loss, Tim would be blind for a while, until we were someplace long enough for lenses and glasses to be made — pretty much the remainder of the trip.
No matter, it was really funny. Mission accomplished, Timbo! You owned it!
Fun story: When I finally got contact lenses in 1978, I lost one before I even got out of the office. Must have been a sight (puns abound!) for arriving patients to see a half dozen nurses and admins crawling around on the floor.
Note the address: Dead Indian Road. Well certainly they’ve changed the name of that by now. Nope. It’s actually got a pretty significant history. You can learn about it here.
Tim rented a boat and fished all day. He took Doug out too and we all took a ride and a hike and collected pine cones. Cooked spaghetti and brownies. Battened down and had a rain storm.
Marge Binder, July 23, 1969
Inside I must have been miserable. But that couldn’t stop the cuteness!
Mom’s diary clocks 30+ times that Tim fished on this 62-day trip. I wouldn’t be surprised if she omitted 10 or 20 other times. Tim loved to fish. All his life, that was his catharsis, his place to be alone, to captain his own ship and leave the rest of the world back on shore.
As an adult, when he visited our Lake Michigan home each summer with his own family, he’d set out on the big lake from Pentwater pretty much every single morning and return well after dark (which could be after 11 o’clock). Dad bought a real fishing boat — the Pequod — back in the 90s to encourage even more fishing. Tim rewarded him with dozens of huge Coho salmon and some other kinds too.
Dad would sometimes accompany Tim for one of their marathon conversations. (More often, Dad would beg to be released after a few hours.)
Tim and fish, but probably not from this trip.
In the minutes after learning that Tim had died unexpectedly, I pictured him and Dad being reunited aboard the Pequod in the sky. This is the image that resulted, in time for what would have been his 61st birthday.
ADDENDUM: After I published this I realized this installment takes place in Oregon. Another eerie coincidence with this blog: When I got news of Tim’s death in 2015, I was on a business trip in Portland. As I wandered the downtown streets in a daze, this scene first began forming in my mind’s eye.
Must have been a dreadful way to start the day: 4AM alarm so that Mom could drive Dad to the airport. And, just like that, he was gone, leaving Maw with her three boys to navigate 3000+ miles back east.
Oh, and Tim fished.
Jim and I got up at 4 AM and took him to catch the 6:10 plane for Seattle. Got Mike’s shot, did the laundry, washed my hair, bought groceries etc. Tim caught some nice fish in the Lewis River.
Marge Binder, July 25, 1969
Open Road. Big Screen: Roadtrip Movies
A few weeks ago we looked at books about roadtrips. There weren’t a lot to include, best, worst or otherwise. But movies? Oh yeah, the movies were invented for the roadtrip.
There’s a great chapter in Aaron Sorkin’s Masterclass program that uses the roadtrip as a means to explain intention and obstacle — the basics of story. It’s simple but brilliant. You can’t just go from point A to B, you’ve got to want to get there so bad — money, love, freedom, salvation. You have to be willing to put your life on the line for it. And, of course, obstacles arise that must be overcome.
Intention and obstacle make for great stories (especially movies), but for this series of posts, I’m going to veer into other roadtrip films that are merely good or special to this scribe.
As with the post about books, we need to define what is a true roadtrip film. Because film is a modern invention, compared with the written word, most tales of travel tend to rely on a motorized vehicle and a surface on which to operate it. Unlike, say, The Odyssey or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I also considered films like “The Wizard of Oz” but called a DQ. So basically, I consider a roadtrip movie to be any movie where the plot centers on people who quest to go somewhere in a motorized vehicle that follows a road or surface. Nuance: it’s not about the car, it’s about the journey, so no “Herbie the Lovebug” or James Bond.
And, as with any list based on personal opinion, this list will rile critics and detractors. I don’t care. Make you own list if you feel the need.
Herewith, the first of a few lists of roadtrip films, starting with the five honorable mentions for films about roadtrips without destination.
Honorable Mentions: Roadtrips that Lead Nowhere
“Sideways”
With great writing and direction by Alexander Payne, it’s a buddy film set against the lush wine country of SoCal. Mix in a little mid-life crisis-times-two, lots of drinking and a star turn by Virginia Madsen, and there’s a lot to love about this movie.
“Tommy Boy”
A silly frat boy pic that involves a lot of driving with no destination. Good gags and great chemistry — Chris Farley is a one-man chemistry set; David Spade is a beaker. If only Brian Dennehy’s Big Tom had survived the inciting event, that would have been a great movie.
“About Schmidt”
Another Alexander Payne film and one that got me hooked when I saw the trailer. Unfortunately, Jack Nicholson’s Schmidt is a miserable wretch, and in the end, he finds peace not on the road but in a letter from his adopted “pen pal” child in Africa. He didn’t need to leave the house for that.
“Thelma & Louise”
You can tell early on that T&L need more than a girls’ weekend. To me, what keeps this from being a top-tier roadtrip film is probably its most memorable scene. (Spoiler) Great roadtrips and films find a way to avoid the cliff. I suppose, though, that if you can’t find an alternative, gunning the gas into fiery oblivion makes for a spectacular send-off.
“Almost Famous”
The “Tiny Dancer” scene epitomizes the joy of a true roadtrip: rolling together, warbling harmonious with conviction, even though everyone is royally hung over and the bus reeks of stale beer, old bathroom and bruised testosterone. Or, as I like to call it: my college days.
Mike snorting and snuffling. Ran into rain in Omaha (yesterday). Crossed the Mississippi. Camped near Utica, Illinois. Tim fished. Mike swam. Had to take him to St. Mary’s LaSalle emergency room for his ears.
Marge Binder, August 5, 1969
We are officially back east, now that we’ve crossed the Mississippi into Illinois. Even with the typical daily activities of Tim fishing and Mike swimming (where was I? Knitting?), Mike also found time to snort, snuffle and eventually visit the ER. I would agree that this post’s headline is a little sensational for an ear ache, but this is — shockingly — the only ER visit cited on the entire trip.
Below is a postcard of the hospital in La Salle, Illinois back when people sent postcards of hospitals they visited. Actually, my brother Mike would have been a prolific mailer (sorry, Miko!).
Marge Binder's Epic Adventure 