It’s mid-summer, isn’t it? How did that happen? Like many of you, I’m planning our summer vacation. We’re going to London in early August, and I’ve bought tickets for all sorts of tours and plays and things.
I can’t help but think, though, of summers past, and other family vacations. Summers when I was a child, blissfully spread out in the wayback seat of the station wagon on the road to somewhere. With a book, of course. Several, actually. My dad always said I kept him company on those long road trips, even in the wayback seat, because everyone else in the family fell asleep but I never did. I just kept reading.
Remember these station wagons? Ah, simpler—and much more dangerous!—times.
One of these road trips became part of our family lore. It was the summer we drove from Indianapolis to Virginia and then to Washington, DC. My dad—an old Navy man—wanted to go to Norfolk first to see the shipyards, after driving down through the Appalachian mountains. Then we’d head up to Washington.
(I just realized, in typing this, that all my family’s summer vacations were planned around what my dad wanted to do. Kids were rarely consulted or even considered. We didn’t do a lot of kid-related things—I mean, seriously. What ten-year-old wants to tour the Norfolk shipyards? Or even see the Lincoln Memorial? Huh. This explains a lot about my childhood, and how it shaped my own parenting.)
Anyhoo. Another hallmark of those family vacations was that my father planned out a route and the desired mileage for that day and NOTHING WOULD STOP HIM. No side trips to see any of the fun roadside attractions of that era. No lingering over lunch, no unnecessary pit stops.
On that infamous Virginia trip, I happened to be at the height of my passion for horses. I think most girls of my generation went through a horsey phase. Mine was acute and long-lasting. I used to save up my allowance to buy those Breyer collectible horses. There was a store inside the Lafayette Square Mall in Indianapolis, Indiana, that carried them. And I had to walk through that store to get to the music store where I took piano lessons, and I always lingered at the counter where all the Breyer horses were and when I had the scratch, I bought one.
And I read all the horse books, like the Black Stallion and Man O’War by Walter Farley. And all the Marguerite Henry books but especially Misty of Chincoteague. How I loved that book!
Well, on that road trip, we were driving along headed either to or from Norfolk, I don’t remember. But I do remember, vividly, painfully, driving by a big sign that said something like “Chincoteague Island Annual Pony Swim Today!” with a big arrow pointing the way off the highway.
Well. I screamed bloody murder, almost causing my dad to lose control of the station wagon. “Dad! Mom! Look!!!! We have to go we have to go please can we go please oh please oh please Misty and Stormy and the ponies oh please please please???”
And reader, my dad said, “No.”
I began to cry. Huge sobs. Buckets and buckets of salty tears. Even my mother, who usually didn’t express an opinion about these things, pleaded my case.
Reader, my dad still said, “No.” And then he added that we needed to make another 250 miles that day so please shut up and let him drive.
I died. My soul actually left my body and I was a little ten-year-old shell of a girl in her polyester short set from Sears, her frizzy hair pulled back in a ponytail tied with yarn, her little feet in her blue Keds sneakers, the kind with the white rubber toes.
This little 1970s girl just gave up the ghost, right there somewhere in Virginia, so near—and yet so far—from Chincoteague Island and Misty and Stormy and all the ponies.
Years, decades, passed. I recovered, sort of. To the point where, if I really wanted to play my father (and who doesn’t, at a certain age?), I’d bring this story up at holidays. He always held firm, though. He never apologized. He just kept saying, “But we had to make 250 miles that day!”
You know what, though?
A few years before he passed away, he stunned me. When I brought it up again, to the usual eye rolls from the rest of my family, my dad actually—apologized.
This was not something that he did. Like, ever. Questioning his actions or opinions was not in his DNA. But sometime in his eighties, my father actually said, very softly as if he hoped nobody would really notice, “I do kind of feel bad about that.”
Well, I noticed. I didn’t say much of anything beyond, “Huh.” But it stuck with me and became the coda to that whole tragic story that I still tell on occasion—like now.
I’m not sure what my point is, other than life is short. Family vacations are fleeting. Chincoteague Island Pony Swim only happens once a year and if you happen to drive by and see the sign, for heaven’s sake please stop.
Listen to the child in the wayback seat. Listen to the child within.
Don’t carry around a whole lot of “I should haves” for the rest of your life.
My lessons were at Grandview Stables on the north side, no longer in existence unfortunately. And a few more at Girl Scout Camp Gallahue. Good times….
I grew up in Indianapolis about 10 years before you did. I also went through a very long "horsey" phase, collected figurines, read those same books and others, and was lucky enough to take a few riding lessons at a local stable. My dad used to tell me that I could have a horse when we moved to the country. As if that was ever going to happen! I did move to the country when I grew up (commuting to Indy for work), but never got a horse of my own..... Your story brought back sweet memories, so thank you!