Trifter

Aunt Bessie joined us for a family vacation we took to Canada one summer. Mom and I loaded the red Coca-Cola cooler with ice and drinks, cold cuts, tomatoes, lettuce for sandwiches and lots of potato salad. My father made sure there was a couple of bags of chips and bread in a non-crushable corner of the car with our luggage, locked up the house, turned on the timers for the lights and the sprinklers and we, my mother and I along with my father, sister Debbie and Aunt Bessie all piled into the family wagon for the six-hour trip to that nation to the North. My father had once been hired by Aunt Bessie’s favorite singer to design and install his new kitchen. Of course, it was assumed that an autograph for his sister-in-law would be an easy promise to keep, but was glad he hadn’t mentioned what he was intending to be a surprise for her when the unexpected turn of events resulted in his never actually meeting the entertainer. My father had worked for his share of celebrities over the years, but this one was the man whose singing he liked the least. My aunt was in love with this entertainer and as Bessie was one of the very few of my mother’s relatives my father could stand and he really would have liked to get his sister-in-law an autograph, it never happened and became quite impossible when, on the final night of the job, my father was driving down the long driveway belonging to the estate and was forced off the road by an oncoming vehicle. When the car passed by, he could see the singer himself behind the wheel. Out of anger and, without fear of retribution as he had already collected his fee, my father yelled out the window, “I see you drive as well as you sing, you idiot!” Thinking that the alleged singer’s hearing must be better than his voice as the brake lights of the other vehicle came on, he smiled as he pulled away. My father never told my aunt of the experience and was glad he had never mentioned the job to her before it was done. He could have told my aunt what had happened and, while she would have been disappointed at not having gotten the autograph, she would have seen the humor and appreciated it for what it was, but why disappoint this nice woman who meant so much to his family?

The family wagon, predecessor to the minivan, traveled up the Northway at the speed limit with scores of other families in search of picnic perfection to not only eat, but get out of the car that had consumed so much of the day. Aunt Bessie had my sister and I keep our faces pointed straight ahead as she lay across the back seat with her head out of sight and asked my sister for her stuffed monkey, Sam. Sam was a good two and a half feet from head to two,made of a dark grey furry material. He had a smiling rubber face and had rubber hands that my aunt shook back and forth in a waving motion every time a car passed by, causing the inhabitants to do a double take, rub their eyes and poke another person in the car if they were lucky enough to be traveling with a witness to their obvious hallucination. Some people were annoyed, others laughed, still others awoke any sleeping travelers for this once in a lifetime simple observation. One driver slowed down to pass us three times so his laughing children could watch the friendly monkey until they got to their exit.

The radio played music and news that reflected our trip’s progress, occasionally causing my father to adjust the station every time we traveled out of range of each station. Each news report gave details of a very large group of concert goers arriving for a very uncommon musical gathering in Upstate New York. That story in particular didn’t interest my sister and I nearly as much as the litter of puppies to which our German Sheppard had given birth recently, or the little boy to which our sister Linda had recently also given birth. Debbie and I had seen the picture she had sent of him and we were both in agreement that the puppies were much cuter and aside from the high weeds where our dog had chosen to have her puppies surrounded by burdock, catching my long hair and requiring much painful brushing that failed to put a smile on my mother’s face, the events were similarly boring. The trip to Canada.seemed pretty boring to us as well and a great deal more work to drive all the way to another country when Florida must be way closer to New York and they had just opened that new theme park we probably would have liked more than someplace that keeps falling. At least that’s the way we understood that was what my parents had told Aunt Bessie when she asked where we would be staying and they said Niagara Falls. Disneyworld would have to be more interesting than that if it was like the show on TV, unless it was all about that guy talking about his guide and him spying from the bushes. We’ve already been to the zoo if that’s all it was about.

Finally, my father found a good place to stop for lunch and began to park the car. Mom and Aunt Bessie made their way to the bathroom and my sister and I helped my father get the food and drinks for lunch out of the car. I carried the bag of chips and the bread bag while my sister took the one with plates, cups and plastic ware. My father carried the seemingly massive cooler that my little girl’s mind couldn’t imagine lifting, assuring my father eternal placement on the hero’s list daughter’s have for their fathers until they turn some unknown age during their teen years when the man they imagined could do no wrong somehow does. Once all the fixings for the feast were on the picnic table and my mother and aunt had returned from their hurried trip to the bathroom, Debbie and I took the next generation’s trip to the ladies’ room the older sisters had just taken while my father made a quick trip to the mens’ room. When the three of us returned to find the two women had neatly and generously laid the plates and cups and napkins and plastic ware in their own tidy place settings with three on one side and two on the other. They had filled the cups, placed the open bread and chip bags on one side of the sliced tomato, lettuce, and onions on separate plates next to the open condiments containing plastic knives for everyone’s convenience. All that was needed were five people and their appetites, so we all proceeded to sit down to feast, kids on one side and adults on the other. When the table came to an abrupt stop, lying on its’ side with my aunt and both parents on the ground beneath it, surrounded by cold cuts and vegetables, covered with condiments and beverages, with my sister and I staring down at them as we dangled over them on the other side of the table which had now become the top; the first sounds were words I wasn’t allowed to use back then followed by groans and finally laughter that went on for years and years, restarting every time the family gathered for an event, whether it be a wedding, a graduation, a christening, a funeral, but most definitely and uproariously, a picnic.