Bob's Corner
“Eat Gas & Pop” is one of my favorite service station/cafe roadside signs. It was posted in Windblown, Ariz. Or maybe it was TooHot, N.M. Can’t really recall the exact location except that I spotted it during a road trip with my family back when I was but a tad of a lad and really bad with my ducktail hair style, cuffed Levi’s and Sir Guy shirt. Yes, a potential J.D.
Another memory is of a movie theater marquee somewhere in the Great Southwest. A current movie was The Tattered Dress. Someone with a sense of humor, I hope, placed the film title above the notation With Selected Shorts. And who among us, who traveled those long-ago two-lane highways, including the famous Route 66 Mother Road, will ever forget the famous Burma Shave signs.
Three of my favorites: His cheek/Was rough/His chick vamoosed/And now she won’t/Come home to roost/Burma Shave ... The place to pass/On curves/You know/Is only at/A beauty show/Burma Shave ... On curves ahead/Remember, sonny/That rabbit’s foot/Didn’t save/The bunny/Burma Shave. Yeah, those red signs with white lettering helped ease the boredom of those long drives.
Once on our getting-lost expeditions (see below) we stopped for gasoline at a shabby station. There was a wooden box with chicken wire on top, and a sign that read, “Danger. Baby Rattlers.” So I approached cautiously and peeked inside. There were two infant rattle toys inside. Ha-ha.
With Fathers Day recently passed, that’s why some recollections of my late Dad and those summer trips to his hometown of El Paso, Texas came to mind. Most times, we drove straight through -- an 18-hour odyssey from San Diego -- except for breakfast, lunch and restroom breaks. Otherwise, he was loathe to use the brakes for breaks.
Many times we got lost, except that Dad would say, akin to Pee Wee Herman, “I meant to go this way.” Of course, that’s why we went via Flagstaff in northern Arizona to reach El Paso. Of course. At least on those outings, we spent the night in Flagstaff before arising at dawn to hit the road. Why we were always in such a hurry is still a mystery.
Other than getting lost, one of my favorite rollin’ along pastimes was to count the refrigerated cars being hauled through the desert. One time, my Mom and I counted 203 cars in one train. It had four diesel engines at the head, two “in the middle” and two pushing. I’ve always had a passion for trains, as I recall riding them when they were pulled by those wonderful iron horse steam engines.
Don’t get me started; that’s a whole other train of thought.
