Father Far and Away: Part 1

When I was growing up, my family NEVER stayed in motels. Dad could not see spending a month's house payment for a few nights in a little room with two beds. We vacationed all across northern Michigan and Georgian Bay, Canada, but always stayed in tents, and none of our family road trips were more than a day's drive from home. By the way, Dad's definition of a day's drive was what he could do himself from dawn to dark with as few stops as possible.

When I was nine, we loaded up our VW bus and began a "day's drive" to a family reunion at my Uncle Roy's house in Lancaster County, PA. Our route took us across Ontario, Canada, to Niagara Falls. It was our first time to see this landmark and we ended up staying longer than planned enjoying both the American and Canadian side. Dad knew we could not make his brother's house in what was left of the day so he decided we’d spend the night.

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“Wow! Are we staying in a motel?“ I asked.

“We’ll see,” Mom said, and Dad shot a perturbed glance her way.

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Dad was a firm believer in not getting our hopes up, and Mom had a habit of raising faint hope with the words “We’ll see.” It was one of the constant but bearable tensions of our shared life.

I leaned over to Dave and whispered, “We’ll see means no.”

Dad did stop by a few motels while we waited in the car, but each time he came out with the dazed look he wore whenever something was not only out of our budget but out of the question. It was a look I did not understand at nine but would respect by nineteen.

That night the six of us slept at the far end of the parking lot behind Louis Tussaud's wax museum, which incidentally we never did get to see. “It’s just a bunch of people made out of wax,” Dad explained. [Years later as an adult, I paid the admission. He was right.]

Dad slept with his back to the door, feet stretched to the far floor. Mom curled on the front bench seat with her head against his chest. Kathy was on the middle bench, and Paul and Dave shared the rear bench with their legs sprawled in every direction. I was over the engine compartment in the back. Other than the fact that the prickly mat came right through my clothes, it wasn't a bad place to stretch out. In the middle of the night I woke to a single snore, peeked up at the silhouette of Dad's head leaning back like a PEZ dispenser, and fell back asleep.

It was not until ten years later that I stayed in a motel with my parents, but it was quite by accident.

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To Be Continued...