Raised On Road Trips: My Parents, Our Cadillac, and the Summers I Didn't Know I'd Miss

My dad did not fly. Not once. Not for a wedding, not for a funeral, not for anything. So every summer, we drove.

Bronx, New York to Virginia. To North Carolina. To Georgia. A couple of times we pushed all the way to Florida, or out to Tennessee. And before I was even born while my mother was pregnant with me, my parents drove from New York to Arizona and California. Because my father was not getting on a plane, and that was the end of the discussion.

We left at 2am. Sometimes 3am. My mother packed the cooler like she was feeding a small army: bologna sandwiches, fried chicken, Entenmann's cakes, Pepsi, water. My father drove 95% of the way, foot heavy on the gas, my mother telling him the whole time to stop driving like a bat out of hell. I was the official map holder. Miss Atlas Assistant, whether I wanted the job or not and according to my father, I didn't get a vote.

The radio was its own road trip. Dad had his old school lineup like Al Green, the Temptations, Earth, Wind & Fire until Mom decided enough was enough and it was time to listen to the Lord, and gospel took over the speakers. Ninety minutes later, without fail, Dad would announce that was enough gospel, thank you. I'd sit in the back with my Walkman on, watching the two of them go back and forth, shaking my head, staying all the way out of it.

And the smell. Lord, the smell. Fried chicken and something else, because everything made my father fart, and he never once said excuse me. He'd just tell us it was natural. So somebody was always rolling down a window either Mom, or me, whoever cracked it first.

Every four years, like clockwork, my parents traded in for a new Cadillac. My dad was a Cadillac man, full stop. That car was his pride, his statement, his whole personality some days.

I didn't always want the job of Atlas Assistant. I definitely didn't ask for gospel hour or the fried chicken and farts combo. But I always loved those trips. Loved falling asleep in the back seat around 3am, just me back there, nobody needing anything from me, the whole family moving toward somewhere together.

Both of my parents are gone now. And it's taken me getting older to understand what I actually had in that Cadillac, packed cooler on the floor, bickering over the radio dial somewhere on I-95. Those weren't just car rides. Those were some of the best years of my life, and I didn't know it while I was living it. I know it now. I miss them tremendously.

That's the spirit behind our newest design: Gen X: Raised On Road Trips, Running On Vibes.

This one's for everybody who grew up in the back seat with no phone, no GPS, just a paper map and whatever was on the radio that day. For everybody whose parents had their own rules about how they'd travel and you just went along with it. For everybody who'd give almost anything for one more drive with the people who used to sit up front.

We didn't document every mile back then. We just went. And somehow, those are the memories that stayed.

Peace & 1-Love