It was the summer that my parents owned a light blue, two-door Pontiac Grand Prix, the long, boxy kind made in the seventies. The metallic finish had a disco sparkle in the hot summer sun. Everything then seemed to have a silver or blue or metallic finish. Eye shadow on girls with long golden hair. Thin metal belts worn with Calvin Klein jeans. Silver threads sewn into the tightly woven plaid fabrics of shirts with little metal buttons. All of those things just seemed to fade into the backseat of that car. But there were more than only the pop art memories of the day riding in the backseat of our car.
My sister and I didn’t know about those things. We were only aware of each other in the backseat, riding side by side on the powder blue, soft, velvet-like upholstery, stained here and there by red Kool-Aid and occasional splotches of chocolate, on our way to the Grand Canyon, riding fast across Texas in the hot summer sun.
At first we started out playing the license plate game. You know the one. You look out the window and try to find a license plate from every state. Mother had given Ruth and I a bag full of things to use to entertain ourselves. We took out a spiral notepad, the kind with the spiral binding at the top, and began to record all of the tags. As tags began to repeat themselves, we would place checks beside them. From time to time, we would stop and tear out a piece of paper to make a sign. We would hold “Honk” or “Where are you going?" to the window to truckers and cars passing by. Sometimes we would receive a honk or a sign revealing a destination in return, sometimes we would not.
Blowing past overstuffed cattle, we were content in our silvery-blue car, enjoying our air conditioner and waving, holding signs, and recording car tags. This kept our attention even past our picnic lunch of warm ham and cheese sandwiches.
It was right after lunch, sun overhead, when we noticed an unfamiliar warmth in our car. Before, Ruth and I had been content to occasionally rest our chins on the backs of our parents’ front seats so the air could blow on our faces and hair. This warm didn’t make us want to feel the air in our faces. It made us want to stop at a hotel or gas station, where we could feel the cool that was once inside of our car. But daddy wanted to make good time. No time to stop at a service station along the road. No stopping early to enjoy the cool darkness of a roadside hotel room. Just making good time. We could get the air checked tomorrow morning, first thing.
When the windows were first rolled down, the vacuum of hot air filled the car, letting out the last stream of somewhat cool air from the weakened air conditioner. We just sat and rode with only the sound of rushing cars and hot rushing wind forcing its way into the car. Daddy would ride with his left hand partially stuck out the window, allowing the forced air to push through his fingers. He would only stick his hand out as far as the rear view mirror--no farther--because his uncle had his arm taken off by a dump truck. Seeing daddy push his hand outside the window would remind Ruth and I about Uncle Foster. When riding in the car, Ruth or I would always ask daddy to tell that story if he stuck out his hand, which he always did if the window was down. We had heard the story over and over, but we always wanted to hear it again, as if the details or outcome might change, or at least alter slightly. But it was always the same.
"Uncle Foster was ridin’ down the highway. He had stuck out his arm from the truck window when a dump truck came by. Took his arm clean off."
“Clean off.” That was the part that always got me. Even as a child, I wondered how someone’s arm could be taken clean off. I never asked that question though. I just sat and listened in silence, as I always had, but I still wondered how someone could have a limb removed by a passing car and have it be taken “clean off.”
Silence turned to squirming. Now, we could hear our restless bodies adjusting themselves up and down in the seats, as if this would cool things down. For some reason, we just kept doing it. Tucking one leg under each of us. Putting the leg back down on the floor. Putting our arms on the seat beside us. Then putting our arms behind our heads. Putting our other arms on the edges of the small, triangular backseat windows. Putting those hands back down in our laps. This went on as our bodies became sticky and our long hair was blowing and sticking to our faces and necks. We would smear our hair behind our ears, only to have it blown right back.
Now, we not only wanted out of the heat, but we wanted out of the wind that was blowing our hair into our eyes and ears. I don’t know if it was Ruth or I that laid down first, but one of us did to escape the wind. You had to ride with your feet stuck to the window to do this because the Pontiac had a really small backseat. You could only fit the upper part of your torso on the seat. We laid pillows where our feet would have gone to extend the seat just a bit for more room. Before long, both of us were lying as best we could in that small backseat, feet stuck to the window.
We continued riding like this until daddy decided that we had made enough good time. Stopping at a hotel with a pool, we discovered something awful about our riding position. Escaping the wind, we had scorched the bottoms of our feet. Arriving at the hotel, this painful discovery caused us to want to sleep in the same position that night, only this time, with our feet over the coolness of the air conditioning vent to soothe our bubblegum toes and swollen red heels. Not even the cool waters of the hotel pool, with other summer visitors, could entice us that night.
We did make it to our destination. The Grand Canyon, the Pontiac Grand Prix, and our Grand Plan to escape the wind in our car left a lasting impression on me. I still look back on that summer with fond memories and long for days where I can sit in the backseat with my sister, eat melting ice cream from a cone, and enjoy one more Pontiac Summer.
My sister Ruth on that summer vacation!
