Mom got up early that morning. She cleaned, cut up, seasoned, floured and fried a whole chicken. The chicken was wrapped in foil and placed in a tote bag, one she acquired from a conference or from teaching. To this bag she added a loaf of white bread and fruit. There was another bag with 2 packs of Pringles potato chips and cookies; the thin butter cookies in clear cellophane trays that were under a dollar. There was one roll of paper towels, styrofoam cups and a yellow jug of ice water. Preparing the food was her final act. The last few days she had spent washing clothes. The clothes were folded, rolled and packed into a large, heavy suitcase that the family shared. She placed our clothes in quadrants in the suitcase for each member of the family. We were going down south.
We travelled in our 1976 Chevy Malibu. Leaving Maryland, we would soon be on I-95 on our way to South Carolina; first to visit my mother’s hometown of Cheraw and then on to my father’s in North Augusta. There was more than 500 miles ahead of us. The first part of the drive was easy; the air was as cool as it was going to be. I could keep myself entertained with mile markers and crossing the first state line. I knew that once we got past Richmond, Virginia, I could begin to think about lunch and that fried chicken. It was too early to begin to ask Are we there yet?
Lunch was always at a rest stop. In those days, rest stops offered bathrooms and picnic tables beneath the canopy of large trees. We were glad to be free of the car and ran to an empty picnic table. Mom would methodically remove our food from carefully packed bags. She would then ask us which piece of chicken we wanted. Greg, what you want? Kenny, what you want? Karen, what you want? Thomp (my father), what you want? Hollering out what we wanted, before we were asked, did not change her method, nor did she move any faster. One by one, we would receive. It was a most loving act; a piece of fried chicken wrapped in white bread from the hands of one’s mother.
It was late summer and the sun was most formidable. Wrangled together, we were rushed back to the car by my father. He was motivated to reach Cheraw by a particular time. This means nothing to children as we tried to avoid the burn of hot vinyl seats. Mom found towels or something for us to sit on. For the remainder of the trip, windows were rolled up and down to change the temperature in the car. From the backseat, we would proclaim the obvious, “It’s hot!” And from the front seat, “Roll down the windows!” Other times, the front seaters would ask “Is that too much air on you?” At some point, in response to our restless demands, my mother would yell “Take a nap!”
For entertainment, there were comic books, coloring books and library books. Just books. And when that wasn’t enough, backseat brawls would break out with arguments and a few elbows. This was the natural occurrence when siblings are sausaged together for hours in a hot car. Sometimes my mother would intervene with telling one of us to move over as if there was space to move over to. Usually we were frozen in place by a single line from my father “Now stop all that fighting back there!” We traveled on; eating snacks, reading, making up games. We began to ask Are we there yet? All questions about the distance between cities were answered by my father. Somehow, we reached our destination by the early evening.
The coming days were full and simple. Relatives were visited, telling us how much
we had grown. We played with cousins in
yards and ran in and out until we were told “Stop running in and out of this
house!” I ate peaches, larger than the
size of my hand; warm and delicious. We
made homemade ice cream with my North Augusta grandma; taking turns churning
the ice cream. My father would tell
stories of his childhood and Sunday dinners at big Ma’s (his grandmother) house. At
night, I would fall asleep by an open window, listening to strange night
creatures and staring out into the blackness.
Each day had its own adventure.
Soon, all too soon, my mother would be up again early,
frying chicken. Clothes had been washed
and repacked. We knew our visit down
south had come to an end. We headed back
north, the same way we came; together.
