I recently made a road trip with my family for a Florida vacation. As we were cruising down the interstate, I looked at my three kids in the back seats. One was watching a movie on a DVD player (that’s sooooooo 2005!). One was playing games on an iPad, while the other was listening to music on an iPod. I thought back to the car trips of my own childhood, and thought,
HOW TIMES HAVE CHANGED!!!!!!!!!!
First of all, let’s look at our mode of transformation. Nowadays, we have mini-vans and SUVs full of movie players, charger outlets, USB ports,…
Back in the 1970’s, we had mostly cars and station wagons. And they had two things.
The highlight of our entertainment was fighting over what radio station button to push. Dad usually won with either oldies, easy listening, elevator music.
Cars also had this…
If you younger whipper snappers are wondering what that image is on that charger,
IT”S A CIGARETTE!!!!!!!!!!!
We didn’t use that plug for hand-held Atari video game systems (which didn’t exist). It was used to either light cigarettes or, according to the movies, escape car jackers.
So to keep ourselves entertained, you could try fun, creative quirky activities like…
Singing “99 bottles of beer on the wall, 99 bottles of beer….take one down, and pass it around, 98 bottles of beer on the wall.”
For the Aljancics, that beer would get pretty flat by beer bottle 96.
You could also look out the window for different state license plates. Or count car colors. Or find things that started with different letters of the alphabet. Or play ‘I Spy’. Or try to get a truck driver to honk is horn.
WE DIDN’T NEED NO STINKIN’ TECHNOLOGY!!! WE HAD OUR CREATIVE MINDS!!!
And alot of boorrrrrrrrrrriiiiiinnnnnnnngggggggg hours suffering in the back seat.
One thing we kids did put to good use was fighting. Not over charger wires or movie choices. We fought over battle lines.
My wonderful sister, Andrea, who is one year older than me, waged at least a 7-year war over that imaginary line that cuts the back seat in half. Things would get heated from time to time, but I do have to pack me and sis on the back for being models of diplomacy. As a trip would go on, we would get tired, and thus find peaceful diplomatic solutions to our border disagreements. We would simply lay length wise in opposite directions for some rest and relaxation.
Things got more complicated when my brother Jon, 4 years younger than me, was thrown into to the backseat mix. Andrea & I continued the terms of our laying lengthwise peace treaty, so we had to figure out to do with this new upstart nation. Our solution was to either have Jon sleep above us under the back window, or below us where you would normally put your feet.
In case you worry worts were wondering, seat belts were not in any part of this equation.
Seat belts were those things you stuffed in the seat crack. Did anyone other than Ralph Nader wear a seat belt in the 1970s? I guess SAFETY had a slightly different definition back then.
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Here are a few other memories that nowadays would get parents skewered on Facebook today….
That car seat looks pretty safe! You know what many parents thought was safer? Holding your kid on your lap in the front seat. Or having your toddler sit between you and dad on the front seat.
I faintly remember being 6 or 7 and riding on my dad’s lap one time for a few minutes as he was driving. I even got to steer a little! Hey, if it’s good enough for Andy Aljancic, it’s good enough for Brittany Spears!
Another questionable auto safety choice I remember goes back to one of my baseball teams. After games, we would got to either Dairy Queen or Varsity Isle for treats.
ONLY if we won, of course.
Anyhow, to get there, half of us would pile in Coach Butch’s van, and the other half would pile in the back of Coach Nub’s pick-up truck. And then we would race to see who could get their first (well, maybe it was just a race to us kids). I will say that the pick up did have a cap, so Nub must have been a ‘Safety First’ kind of guy!
How about this safety violation. For a few years, we had a sweet orange Chevy Vega station wagon like this…
Now the Chevy Vega is famous for being one of the worst cars ever. But being a station wagon, it had its perks. It was too small to have one of those ‘face backwards’ seats, but you could fold all the seats down in the back so you have your own flat area to lay out in!
I am happy, and very thankful, to say that my siblings and I managed to survive all those years of suspect safety standards and tedious times of pre-technology.
So next time your kids start complaining in the back seat, tell them to click on their ‘Sports Smack with Mac’ app and reflect on the simpler times of car rides. And maybe find an property line to fight over.
Follow the author on twitter: @macaljancic
You can also e-mail him: macaljancic@yahoo.com