I will turn this car around.
There exists somewhere in the mythology of the American middle class the idea of the idyllic family road trip. It is a journey that includes charming roadside diners, singalongs, and the style and comfort of the great American automobile. As a child who was terrified of airplanes, I became, in the early part of my life, intimately familiar with the reality of the family road trip, and I am sorry to report that the mythical, idyllic version does not exist.
When it comes to road trip fun, my experience suggests that there are diminishing returns as the distance traveled grows. The beginning of the trip is always delightful. Vacation time has come at last, everyone is in the car, and there is a promise of great joy ahead. Eventually, this wears off. If I was an economist, I might be able to prepare some sort of chart explaining the matter, illustrating the point at which the distance traveled causes the state of general happiness to become one of hostility.
Perhaps, in the case of the singalong families, that point might not arrive for days, and they can go on almost any car trip and remain in a state of perfect happiness and tranquility. For our family, I found that things usually fell apart shortly after we crossed the county line — usually within the first half-hour. There are several freeway exits around West Michigan where I have distinct memories of sitting on the side of the road and listening to the “I will turn this car around” talk.
The car was never actually turned around, which meant that the “I will turn this car around” threat eventually took on a sort of ritualistic character, like the lighting of the Olympic cauldron to mark the beginning of a lengthy spectacle.
For our family, a road trip was primarily something to be endured, like a long wedding or a child’s soccer game. Had we lived in a country with more permissive pharmaceutical regulations, the children might have been given tranquilizers. This would have been for the best.
On a particularly good day, an audiobook or movie might have held things together for a while, but it was never permanent. Within a few hours, everything would collapse into a state of total war.
There was no telling what would precipitate the firing of the first shot. Whoever was driving might brake too hard, unleashing a torrent of criticism and complaint. Temperature disagreements were common. If things got boring, my go-to method was to try and make eye contact with my sister until she cried, “He’s looking at me!” This usually spiced things up for an hour or so.
In the later years especially, a road trip could bring about a strange and rare sense of unity between the McKnight children, though always at the expense of my parents. One year, in protest of something that I assume involved food, we made an arrangement in which we loudly protested by alternating who was making what kind of noise. One of us would shout and the other would drum on the seats or hit something. After five minutes, we would switch roles so that the drummer could give their hands a break and the shouter could rest their voice. I cannot recall if this achieved the desired effect, but I know it went on for at least an hour.
The most notable road trip pastime for the McKnight children was to play bingo. Some people might play bingo with state license plates or letters of the alphabet on signs. We found this rather cliché and took great care to develop our own bingo cards instead, most of which were based around my parents. My father demanding that we identify the time signature or artist of a song might check off a square, as would my mother shouting, “Jesus, James!” about a careless driving maneuver.
My parents had their own tricks. I learned not long ago that it is not normal to hold your breath when you cross from one state to another. In tunnels, perhaps, but not at state borders. If my parents did make this up, I can only assume it was to buy a few precious seconds of silence, and I respect them for that. I would do the same thing.
Of principal importance on a McKnight road trip was the idea that there could never come a point at which four people agreed with one another on anything. It was simply an impossibility. This not only made the trip more interesting, but also gave us all a sense of urgency to reach our destination so that we could all be liberated from the environment we had created for ourselves. Breaks were kept to a minimum and food was consumed quickly.
The ultimate triumph of this strategy came in 2013 on a trip from Washington, DC back to Michigan. It took slightly less than nine hours and included a single stop for refueling. If we could have been refueled on the Interstate like a Cold War-era bomber in midair to save ten minutes, we would have done it.
In this new, liminal stage of the pandemic, those of us who are not ready to fly just yet have found a new appeal in the mighty road trip. I feel a nostalgia that I would have previously thought impossible for the McKnight family road trips that once were. In their chaos and chilly efficiency, there is a sort of comfort.
Driving a long distance, I now try to get myself riled up about the thermostat and tell myself, “Fine, this can be lunch. But we’re not stopping again until we get there — and no fluids!” But it is not the same.
Distractions
Things I have been reading, watching, and listening to this week.
“Letter of Recommendation: Airport Layovers” by Sasha Chapin in the New York Times Magazine.
This piece (from an era of more widespread air travel) is one of my favorites and reminds us of what is possible outside of the confines of the family minivan in a place of vacuous anonymity.
“Are There More Tulips Than Usual This Year?” by Ezra Marcus in the New York Times.
It is May, which means it is Tulip Time in Holland, Michigan. We know this because the old City of Holland letterhead used to say in blue script along the bottom, “Where it’s Tulip Time in May.” In other years, we would know this because of the traffic and the food carts and the nightly dancing around the park in wooden shoes. There are not three parades this year, but there is a carnival and a quilt show, so I suppose that we will take what we can get.
Of course, there are the tulips — six million of them. New York City appears to be catching on to the trend, but with a laughable municipal tulip order of 110,000, it looks like they have a long way to go.