On the Road, Summer of 1969

— Victoria Dym

It’s 1969; my parents buy our new family car— an Oldsmobile Toronado. This summer instead of our usual summer vacation in August to the Jersey shore, we head off for a ten-day driving tour of the United States, from Pittsburgh to California, starting with the northerly route and coming home on the southerly route.

Months of planning leads to four AAA Triptiks chocked full of maps, construction warnings, things to do, places to stay and receipts for the hotel and show in Las Vegas.

The Toronado is maroon with a black top and a black interior. I sit behind my father on the passenger side and my brother, Jeff, sits behind my mother on the driver’s side. I am 13 and Jeff is 11. Jeff has a freshly picked booger on his finger and teases me, tries to put it on my arm. I scream and hit at his hand. Mom thinks I start everything and she yells at me. Dad starts singing with the radio, “Winchester Cathedral,” and we all join in.

Somewhere in Kansas on I-70, traffic slows to a crawl. There is a bad accident, a Mustang’s roof is sheared off and a camper trailer has flipped over; clothing, glass and belongings strewn all over the road. When we to get to the scene, state troopers wave us up onto the median to pass. That night we stop at a different motel than planned, one I find in the Triptik. We are behind schedule and Mom, who does most of the driving, doesn’t want to drive at night. In the morning, we awake at 6:30 AM to get an early start only to find two flat tires on the driver’s side where Mom had driven on the median. Amazingly, there is a Uniroyal dealer close by and we get two new tires under the new car’s warranty. Somehow, I get blamed for the flat tires, though.

Back on the road, endless miles to California and we play a game of counting cows, driver’s side versus the passenger side. When you see cows on a field, you shout cows and count the cows and whoever has the most cows at the end of thirty minutes wins. Jeff always won because he cheated; he counted horses too. The other game is Punch Buggy; when you spot a Volkswagen Beetle, you say punch buggy and punch the person sitting next to you. That game turns hurtful and my mother goes ballistic that I am teaching my brother to punch me. We play I Spy and then, my Dad tells a spooky mystery story. My Dad is a very good storyteller.

We make it to Mill Valley, California. Another one of my Father’s favorite songs is “Mill Valley,” which is constantly played on the radio, so we stop in Mill Valley for a hamburger lunch.

We are on Highway 1, the Big Sur, and Jeff’s face turns pale. He says, I don’t feel good.

He says, I feel sick. I try to tell my Mom, but she is concentrating in the road. Whether because of the curving, swerving driving, the constant cigarette smoke, (both my parents are chain smokers) or the greasy hamburger in Mill Valley, Jeff throws up in the little black plastic garbage can with the beanbag wings that is situated on the hump in the backseat. There is vomit all over his brown and white-striped bell bottoms, his shirt, the car floor, my arm and one of the Triptiks. He sits there until my mother gets to a place where she can pull over and everyone gets out as Jeff throws up again on the side of the road. After my brother changes clothes, we leave the garbage can by the side of the road, and clean the car as best as we can. Somehow, it’s my fault there’s vomit in my mother’s new car, even though it is not my vomit! I should have tried harder to get her attention.

Finally, we make it to Las Vegas. Ceasar’s Palace is luxurious and opulent, by far the best hotel that we have stayed at this whole trip. The statue of Caesar Augustus, the Corinthian columns and the fountains! We sit in a red velvet clamshell booth at the dinner show. My brother and I sip on a Rob Roy and a Shirley Temple while our parents cheer us with their Manhattans. We dine on steaks and shrimp cocktails, hot fudge sundaes for dessert.

The Osmond Brothers are the warm-up act. And the show – “These boots were made for walking and that’s just what they’ll do. One of these days, these boots are gonna walk all over you. dare dare dare…..C’mon Boots, start walkin’ do doot, do do do doot.” Nancy Sinatra prances around in knee-high white boots and a skimpy glittery white leotard costume with fringy bell sleeves. Donny Osmond, age 12, comes onstage dressed like Frank Sinatra in a tux and gives Nancy a single red rose.

What a great show! When we get back to the room and start to get ready for bed, our parents let us know that they are going out to another hotel to see a strip show. They want to get a babysitter, a service that is offered by the hotel, but none are available, so they put me in charge and as they leave, they say, lock the door, don’t let anyone in, don’t leave the room, AND don’t fight with your brother. Mom says she will give me $10 for babysitting.

I make sure the doors are locked when they leave and slide the chain lock on for added security. We jump on the beds, watch TV and fall asleep with the lights on. Mom and Dad come back and when their key opens the door, it stops because of the chain lock. They shout at us through the door’s opening but the TV is on and we are fast asleep. They go to the front desk and they call the room, no answer. A janitor is sent to our room with my parents in tow and he cuts the chain lock and replaces it for a twenty-dollar fee.

In the morning I am confident that I will have $10 to spend on souvenirs, only to find out that because of me and the chain lock, I owe her $20 dollars and she is still angry about it. I know better than to protest.

Back on the road, the radio plays, but there are no games or stories, we all wait for my mother to stop being angry. Dad says, someday we’ll all laugh about this. But this falls on deaf ears.

When we make it to Yellowstone, I see my mother smile at Old Faithful when it spews and Dad says that it reminds him of Jeff on “The Big Sur.” At the gift shop, I see this shiny black hematite ball of a ring, that I really want. My dad says to the women behind the counter that I would like to try the ring on. And, I do. He asks me if I like it and I say yes. He asks the woman for a box, he pays with a twenty and pockets the change, all except $10 which he puts inside the ring box and hands me the bag with the box inside. I still have the ring on my finger. He says, thanks for your good work babysitting last night. I know you were just keeping your brother safe. And then before I could say anything back, he says, race you to the car. I start to run, but let him win. I love my Dad so very much. Hard to believe that six years later I would wear that ring to his funeral.

Victoria Dym is a graduate of Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Clown College with a degree in Humility, and holds a Bachelor of Arts, in Philosophy, from the University of Pittsburgh, and a Master of Fine Arts, Creative Writing-Poetry from Carlow University. She is currently working towards a Narrative Therapy Certificate. Her prizewinning chapbook, Spontaneous, was published by the West Florida Literary Federation in 2022. Two earlier chapbooks, Class Clown (2015) and When the Walls Cave In (2018), and her full-length manuscript, The Hatchet Sun (2023), were published by Finishing Line Press. Victoria is an improv artist with regular performances at the Commodore Theater and yearly appearances at the Countdown Improv Festival, and she hosts and produces Poetry on the Lighter Side, where poetry and improv collide. Victoria holds Laughter Yoga workshops and works as a patient actor with Nova Southeastern University, USF and the University of Tampa. Read more about Victoria in a 2024 feature article in Tampa Bay’s Creative Loafing Magazine.