A L S O_ T O D A Y

Drama Queen Winner
This won't hurt a bit: Ever been brought to tears while lying on your back with your legs open in front of a strange doctor?

T A B L E_ T A L K

How much TV is too much? Discuss kids and the boob tube in the Mothers area of Table Talk

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R E C E N T L Y

Beautiful Dreamer
By Lisa Kleinman
Babies No. 1 and 2 had to suffer through less-than-perfect strollers. But baby No. 3 will have the ideal ride -- that is, if there is a baby No. 3
(10/19/98)

Turtle time
By Anne Lamott
Salon welcomes back Anne Lamott after a six-month hiatus, and she announces she has overcome Linda Tripp, an expanding waistline and her compulsion to keep writing books
(10/15/98)

Time For One Thing: Acupuncture
By Lisa Moskowitz
My muscles relax. My eyes close. There is no real pain, just the apprehension of pain
(10/14/98)

Wild Things: Strange brew
By Polly Shulman
Love and art are the twin redeemers for the hipster heroes and heroines of Francesca Lia Block's young adult novels
(10/13/98)

School girl
By Thylias Moss
I thought all girls -- regardless of color -- were heading toward vast opportunities. Then I learned the truth. An excerpt from "Tales of a Sky-blue Dress"
(10/12/98)

BROWSE THE MOTHERS WHO THINK FEATURE ARCHIVES

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Mamafesto
By Camille Peri
Why it's time
for Mothers Who Think

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The worst trip ever

A SWEATY CROSS-COUNTRY TREK IN A 1937 PLYMOUTH WITH TWO CRANKY SIBLINGS, A KANGAROO RAT IN A BOX AND A POGO STICK TURNS INTO FAMILY LEGEND.

BY SUSAN McCARTHY | When the subject of horrible car trips comes up at family gatherings, this one is always proclaimed the worst. It wins hands down for ghastly conditions, ferocious sibling battles and the gratuitous involvement of wild animals and infernal machines. But I missed it, having neglected to be born, and it's obvious to me it was the best.

In the summer of 1944 my grandparents drove their 1937 Plymouth from their native West Virginia to California, where my grandfather and great-uncle Harry would do war work in a DuPont factory. But, because of the war, many motels and restaurants were closed or off-limits to civilians. Gas rationing limited them to 45 mph, so it was a long, long haul. And it was hot. My grandparents, who had fled West Virginia to save their marriage, were barely on speaking terms. The kids, Kenneth, 10, and Martha, 11, were constantly fighting in the back seat. Also in the back seat was patient Uncle Harry, trying to keep the kids from destroying each other utterly.

The day they left West Virginia, Kenneth's friend Sonny gave him his precious pogo stick as a farewell present. Kenneth pogoed across America. He couldn't pogo in the car, so he grabbed every other opportunity to pogo. I envision my grandmother, at the end of a long, hot, horrible day, entering a motel, prepared to plead or battle with the manager for a chance to stay the night despite their civilian status. Behind her trail Martha, whining, and Kenneth: Boing! Thud! Boing! Thud! Boing! Thud!

Somewhere in the Great Plains, the kids caught what has been described to the next generation as a kangaroo rat. They imprisoned it in a box and brought it along for much-needed entertainment. Inexplicably, it wasn't very playful, electing to jam itself into a corner of its confinement and sulk.

When the novelty of the rodent wore off, Martha and Kenneth began to bicker again. Uncle Harry distracted them with a generous offer to pay a penny for every two gray hairs they could find and pull out of his head. They greedily inspected every lock of Harry's black hair, enthusiastically jerking out the gray hairs. Harry was a young man, and soon he was surprised at how many gray hairs the kids found. But when they ran low on gray hairs, the zealous little wage-earners simply began pulling black hair. Soon, Harry got wise and began demanding to view the gray hairs before he would pay. Kenneth was baffled at first, but Martha quickly evolved a new strategy: She'd pull two black hairs, so Harry felt the tweaks, then show him two gray hairs she'd pulled before. When Harry finally realized that he was seeing the same two gray hairs again and again, he politely insisted that she stop. There may have been some words spoken about honesty being the best policy. Humiliated and disgraced, Martha huddled in a corner of the back seat.

But now, while Martha sulked, Kenneth was somehow finding gray hairs again, and turning them over and getting paid. Martha, sullen and suspicious, tried to puzzle out what he was doing, and soon spotted Kenneth's trick. He'd pull two black hairs from Harry's head, reach into the box, pull two pale hairs out of the kangaroo rat's tail and give them to Harry. The kangaroo rat, already despondent about being captured, boxed and taken for a ride, simply crouched and endured.

When Martha figured out what Kenneth was doing, she indignantly grabbed for the rat. That was it for the rat, who finally decided it was time to bite somebody. Martha shrieked and yanked her hand -- with kangaroo rat attached -- out of the box, sending it flying across the car. "Help, help!" she screamed. "My Land!" screamed my grandfather, swerving. "Jack, Jack, watch the road!" screamed my grandmother. "No fair!" screamed Kenneth.

They pulled over. By this time the kangaroo rat was under the seat in hysterics, so they got out, opened the doors and waited for it to emerge. This didn't happen for a long time, perhaps because Kenneth took this rare chance to pogo -- along the shoulder of the road. Boing! Thud! Boing! Thud! Boing! Thud! After about half an hour the kangaroo rat shot out and disappeared into the desert, where, presumably, all its hair grew back snow-white.

This incident made my grandmother realize that distracting the kids was a matter of life and death. She got them started on word games. But they were soon bored with spotting license plates and playing "I love my love with an A because she is Adorable, I hate my love with an A because she is Awful ..." They began playing a game based on the following ancient folk tune:

If I had a million dollars
I know what I would do
I'd buy a million packets of pins
And stick them all in you
Ha ha

The game was to construct variations:

If I had a million dollars
I know what I would do
I'd buy 10,000 pogo sticks
And bounce them over you
Ha ha

This provided such a good outlet for savagery that the family arrived in California intact. Today, Martha (my mother) and Kenneth (my uncle) are on excellent terms, if you discount the occasional ice cube dropped down the collar. In collective memory, the 11-day car trip to California is a golden time -- the worst of road trips, the best of road trips. Although my mother would never let me get a pogo stick.
SALON | Oct. 20, 1998

Susan McCarthy is a San Francisco freelance writer and the author with Jeffrey Masson of "When Elephants Weep" (Delacorte, 1995).