The road to my grandparents house from Moncton was improving,it seemed,but there was still a long drive and there was a lot of construction above Fredricton while they built the roads higher up, as part of the dam construction that was going on.For a lot of children,I guess it could have been a really boring ride.Usually my sister would go to sleep in the backseat.Sleeping in the car was something that never really appealed to me that much.As far as I was concerned, there was just so much to see.
I never liked to sit in the back seat.Never! And I sometimes got into arguments with my parents about that.But usually I was allowed to sit up front,in the middle between my mother and my father, at least when we had a car with bench seats.In those days nobody ever used a booster seat, and not all cars had seat belts either.In those that did, they were usually shoved down behind the seats, because nobody I knew back then used them.My mother once told me though, that it would be better for me to be in the backseat in the event that we were ever in an accident. Usually it was an argument that she did not win.I refused to believe we would ever be in an accident.My father was simply too good a driver to ever let that happen.And,as I said,there was a lot to see,and I was convinced I could never see it as well in the back. And even though the view didn't change that much over time,the sights still fascinated me: Animal Land the bridges at Cole Island, The lake,at Youngs Cove, the high,arching bridge at Jemseg,Army trucks near Gagetown-sometimes you could hear artillery far off on the opposite side of the river,trees growing up right out of the water and cows grazing on little islands in the middle of the river. A huge Potato by the roadside.The river far below as we crossed the Princess Margaret Bridge,ant the skyline of Fredricton, most notably Christ Church Cathedral.Then the machines cutting back the hills above the river, leaving sheer rock faces that soon became covered with graffiti.The blue river below,and high, verdant hills and pastures on the far side.There was a road over there too, and I always wanted to take that road,just to see what was there.But we almost never took that road. Then there was Crowhill and the last leg of the trip into Canterbury.
When we would get bored,my parents would sometimes invent games for us to play.We played "I Spy".A game in which you said"I spy,with my little eye,something that is red." or"Something that begins with T." Usually we went by color, because I didn't know what everything I spied started with.Then my parents would try to guess that the thing that you saw that was green was a tree, without being too obvious that they already knew. After all, what else could it be.Central New Brunswick certainly had a few interesting trees, and in some places, not much else. My father used to tell us to count the red lights on poles along the roadside at night, saying that they were jackrabbits.For some reason he had the urgent need to know how many jackrabbits there were.It was integral to having a safe trip, in some way I've yet to understand. So count jackrabbits we did, until I was old enough to realize that no rabbits ever climbed trees.And, every time we spotted a field full of cows,we would quickly roll down the window and moo at them.Later on we would count Volkswagen beetles, or,as my father called them,bugs.Much later, that evolved into a game called "punch buggy."
Sometimes we would have to stop to use the washroom.If it was daytime we would scurry off into the trees.There was always plenty of cover. But sometimes at night, we would just go right beside the car.Like most little boys, the thought of peeing along the roadside was a source of great amusement to me, a treat of sorts, like doing something you really weren't supposed to but knowing that you were going to get away with it.So sometimes I'd be standing there in the dark and peeing right on the cars tires, because the brake pads were hot, and they would hiss softly and release steam.It would always make me laugh, and became part of the ritual of a road trip.
There was one thing that I never liked about road trips though.Never goy used to it, not even to this day. My father was a smoker.I had no idea then if he smoked a lot, because I had no idea what a lot was. He wasn't like our babysitter who would sometimes be smoking a cigarette while another one was burning down in the ashtray. But he smoked quite a number of them on a road trip of any length.So, on a trip to Canterbury,he might smoke something like six or eight cigarettes. My mother would sometimes have a smoke too.Not because she really wanted a smoke, but because she saw it as uncivil to refuse if one were offered, even from her husband.But she would never have more than one per road trip, so far as I can recall. The thing was, they would never let us roll down our windows, so the smoke just kept building up in the car.Sometimes I had to sit there and try very hard not to get sick, because all that smoke really did nauseate me. Occasionally I could convince my father to open the vent window-cars back then, for the most part had these little triangular vent windows located just ahead of the front window. But opening the vent window really didn't take much smoke away.It just allowed a rush of air into the car and blew the smoke around,while offering relatively little fresh air. Sometimes, along with the vent, he would crack the side window a bit and that would evacuate some of the smoke. But we were not permitted to roll down the rear windows.In 1967, both my sister and I were still sufficiently small that we might have fallen out a car window, and for my mother, I think she truly did fear this. More so for my little sister perhaps. But I would stick my hands outside too, and I always caught the devil for that.
Most car rides were pleasant enough.I was never really bored, and looked on car trips as an adventure.The smoke though turned into a bit of an ordeal, and it was a part of family trips that I came to dislike more and more as time went by.In fact, I came to be a bit militant about always having the window up.It's likely the biggest reason that I never acquired a taste for cigarettes, or any other kind of tobacco.In fact, by the time I was in grade one, I'd pretty much set my mind that I was never going to smoke.
I never liked to sit in the back seat.Never! And I sometimes got into arguments with my parents about that.But usually I was allowed to sit up front,in the middle between my mother and my father, at least when we had a car with bench seats.In those days nobody ever used a booster seat, and not all cars had seat belts either.In those that did, they were usually shoved down behind the seats, because nobody I knew back then used them.My mother once told me though, that it would be better for me to be in the backseat in the event that we were ever in an accident. Usually it was an argument that she did not win.I refused to believe we would ever be in an accident.My father was simply too good a driver to ever let that happen.And,as I said,there was a lot to see,and I was convinced I could never see it as well in the back. And even though the view didn't change that much over time,the sights still fascinated me: Animal Land the bridges at Cole Island, The lake,at Youngs Cove, the high,arching bridge at Jemseg,Army trucks near Gagetown-sometimes you could hear artillery far off on the opposite side of the river,trees growing up right out of the water and cows grazing on little islands in the middle of the river. A huge Potato by the roadside.The river far below as we crossed the Princess Margaret Bridge,ant the skyline of Fredricton, most notably Christ Church Cathedral.Then the machines cutting back the hills above the river, leaving sheer rock faces that soon became covered with graffiti.The blue river below,and high, verdant hills and pastures on the far side.There was a road over there too, and I always wanted to take that road,just to see what was there.But we almost never took that road. Then there was Crowhill and the last leg of the trip into Canterbury.
When we would get bored,my parents would sometimes invent games for us to play.We played "I Spy".A game in which you said"I spy,with my little eye,something that is red." or"Something that begins with T." Usually we went by color, because I didn't know what everything I spied started with.Then my parents would try to guess that the thing that you saw that was green was a tree, without being too obvious that they already knew. After all, what else could it be.Central New Brunswick certainly had a few interesting trees, and in some places, not much else. My father used to tell us to count the red lights on poles along the roadside at night, saying that they were jackrabbits.For some reason he had the urgent need to know how many jackrabbits there were.It was integral to having a safe trip, in some way I've yet to understand. So count jackrabbits we did, until I was old enough to realize that no rabbits ever climbed trees.And, every time we spotted a field full of cows,we would quickly roll down the window and moo at them.Later on we would count Volkswagen beetles, or,as my father called them,bugs.Much later, that evolved into a game called "punch buggy."
Sometimes we would have to stop to use the washroom.If it was daytime we would scurry off into the trees.There was always plenty of cover. But sometimes at night, we would just go right beside the car.Like most little boys, the thought of peeing along the roadside was a source of great amusement to me, a treat of sorts, like doing something you really weren't supposed to but knowing that you were going to get away with it.So sometimes I'd be standing there in the dark and peeing right on the cars tires, because the brake pads were hot, and they would hiss softly and release steam.It would always make me laugh, and became part of the ritual of a road trip.
There was one thing that I never liked about road trips though.Never goy used to it, not even to this day. My father was a smoker.I had no idea then if he smoked a lot, because I had no idea what a lot was. He wasn't like our babysitter who would sometimes be smoking a cigarette while another one was burning down in the ashtray. But he smoked quite a number of them on a road trip of any length.So, on a trip to Canterbury,he might smoke something like six or eight cigarettes. My mother would sometimes have a smoke too.Not because she really wanted a smoke, but because she saw it as uncivil to refuse if one were offered, even from her husband.But she would never have more than one per road trip, so far as I can recall. The thing was, they would never let us roll down our windows, so the smoke just kept building up in the car.Sometimes I had to sit there and try very hard not to get sick, because all that smoke really did nauseate me. Occasionally I could convince my father to open the vent window-cars back then, for the most part had these little triangular vent windows located just ahead of the front window. But opening the vent window really didn't take much smoke away.It just allowed a rush of air into the car and blew the smoke around,while offering relatively little fresh air. Sometimes, along with the vent, he would crack the side window a bit and that would evacuate some of the smoke. But we were not permitted to roll down the rear windows.In 1967, both my sister and I were still sufficiently small that we might have fallen out a car window, and for my mother, I think she truly did fear this. More so for my little sister perhaps. But I would stick my hands outside too, and I always caught the devil for that.
Most car rides were pleasant enough.I was never really bored, and looked on car trips as an adventure.The smoke though turned into a bit of an ordeal, and it was a part of family trips that I came to dislike more and more as time went by.In fact, I came to be a bit militant about always having the window up.It's likely the biggest reason that I never acquired a taste for cigarettes, or any other kind of tobacco.In fact, by the time I was in grade one, I'd pretty much set my mind that I was never going to smoke.
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