Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 12, 1993 TAG: 9312160001
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Betty Strother
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Fun, yeah. But frankly, we were always ready for school to start up again in September.
Every three years or so, though, vacation meant Virginia.
Virginia! A real vacation. One that involved actual traveling. Going far enough from home that you couldn't make it back by bedtime. Going where Daniel Boone once trod (I was pretty sure). Where frontiersmen carried long rifles and shot bear. Or b'ar, as they said in the books. Folks talked different there.
It was exotic. It was exciting.
And so prestigious. I don't recall any other family on the block ever going anywhere.
And Virginia was not just anywhere, but a beautiful place with a romantic history.
We would go not as lovers of history, though, or of the beach or of the mountains, but simply as family. Dad was from Virginia, and his father and brothers still lived there, so every few years, when whatever conditions that had to be right were deemed right, the decision would be made to head east for a visit.
Mom switched from singing along with Perry Como (``Hot-diggity, dog-diggity, BOOM, what you do to me ... '') to warbling, "In the BLUE Ridge Mountains of Vir-GIN-ia, on the TRAIL of the Lonesome Pine ... '' as she did her ironing. That sent me running to the Funk and Wagnall's ($1 a volume with a minimum purchase each week at the grocery store) to look up a map of Virginia, where I found the actual Trail of the Lonesome Pine. A real place! So wistful sounding. I longed to be there.
Dad dragged out his old Army footlocker and Mom began days of preparation - washing and ironing and folding clothes, arranging these in neat stacks in the footlocker, one little group for each of the five kids. This was the mother lode. Mom and Dad had their own suitcase, but "the trunk" was the mine from which we kids would dig out all our daily necessities for the next two weeks.
About half of that time - the better part of three days each way - would be spent on the road. The purpose of these vacations was to visit relatives, and they were real nice and all, but in truth, the main excitement was the getting there and getting back, the trip itself.
And that is how I first knew of the Blue Ridge Parkway, and came to love it.
The promise of driving that scenic road, with its mountain vistas broken by gentle, pastoral views, its leisurely speed limit and, most important, its absence of trucks ... the mere promise of making it to the parkway was like a balm.
The interstate-highway system had been dreamed up by then, but it certainly wasn't laid. Nowadays you can drive from here to St. Louis on limited access, divided highways the whole way and make the trip in 14 hours - 13 if you stop for no one and no reason. Once you get past the curve in West Virginia, it's a straight shot. Just point the car west, put it on auto pilot, and relax till you get to the bridge. That'll be the Mississippi. You're there.
Back then, if any part of our route was over a road as safe and well- maintained as an interstate highway, I don't remember it. And the only straight shot was through Illinois - long, flat stretches of four-lane U.S. highway, the most boring part of the trip. Even this was punctuated by moments of tense excitement when traffic darted across the road ahead, or a farm tractor rolled slowly from some intersection hidden by cornfields and into our path.
Mom, sotto voce, would offer helpfully: "Neil. He's coming out, Neil. Do you see him?" ... and build to a crescendo ... "Neil? He's coming out!"
"I see him, woman, do you think I'm blind?"
"Well, slow down!"
"Marie, who has a driver's license here, you or me?" (Mom didn't drive back then, except vicariously. We'd have moved into the left lane by now and, whosh, past the tractor.)
"Well I don't care. I'm the one in the death seat. If we have an accident, I'm the one who'll be killed." (I'd turn and kneel to look out the back and the tractor would get rapidly smaller, and soon be out of sight. The death seat. For a long time I thought if we did have an accident, Mom would be the only one who'd get it. The rest of us would be sad, but safe.)
There were similar harrowing experiences as we drove through Kentucky (``Bluegrass country," Mother would rhapsodize. "Look at the beautiful horses."), which always seemed to be barricaded by road projects sending us off our reasonably well-marked route into a tangle of two-lane state roads. With Dad, a highly excitable driver, booming out names on road signs (``Alternate State Route 14A-East!") and Mom frantically peering at tiny veins on our huge map ... well, you get the picture.
The bored whining from the back seat would just be settling into a quiet gloom when Dad finally called out triumphantly, "Look up ahead, kids! The foothills of the Blue Ridge! We'll be in the mountains soon." We were Dorothy and Toto and their traveling buddies stepping out of the forest and catching our first glimpse, across that wide meadow, of the wonderful Land of Oz.
The mountains were the highlight of the trip for me. I never tired of the scenery, and from the side window of the back seat, my mind would drift out into the woods, creating elaborate stories about people who once flitted through those trees, whose spirits, I was sure, were wandering there still. But there was a price to be paid for this pleasure. I recall narrow, two-lane roads, and the utter terror of looking down sheer mountainsides, not so much as a guardrail between our car and the abyss.
The worst part, though, was getting behind slow-moving trucks, and the nerve-wracking business of getting around them. Truckers, as a group, were mighty nice back then, and they'd wave you by when they rounded an uphill curve and could see the oncoming lanes were clear (for a ways). That was the signal for Dad to grip the steering wheel, lean into it, his eyes level with the rim, and hit the gas, trusting his life and the lives of all of his family to the good will and judgment of a stranger. It was scary enough that Mom never uttered a peep.
Not true on the downhill, though, "You're going too fast, Neil" building with alarm to "Watch that curve! We're going to run off the road!" Dad wouldn't argue - couldn't argue.
His jaws would be clenched tight as he stole harried glances into the rearview mirror, and I'd turn to see that nice truck driver hurtling down on us, propelled by his ponderous load.
What adventure. Our destination was not the mountains of Virginia, however, and eventually we would drive out of them and on to Grandad's farm near Ashland, our journey always winding down uneventfully. We never took the parkway on the trip out, but if we started home early enough, and had no breakdowns or other long delays, Dad would casually suggest to Mother that we drive along the parkway on the way back. She'd say that'd be nice, and it'd be decided.
Yes! The parkway! A beautiful drive, and no trucks.
The mountains were the highlight of the trip for me, and that anxiety-free leg along the parkway was the best part of the best part, the juicy, seedless heart of a sweet melon.
I think about those trips often these days, as I witness the debate unfold about development along the Blue Ridge Parkway - what should be built, and where, and how much, and who should decide? - and I hope we're not on the verge of tossing away something invaluable that cannot be retrieved.
I know the world changes, often for the better. I don't want to drive over two-lane mountain roads anymore to get to St. Louis. But the best of the best of what we have - how much can that change before it becomes something completely different? And how can it possibly be better?
by CNB