Mom's trip to remember

Among other things

While we complain about bumpy boulevards, chuckhole streets, washboard avenues, and construction zones on the highways, we still zip along the Interstate and most highways at a pretty good clip - and tend to take it for granted.

That wasn't always the case. For my mother's 90th birthday back in 1990, my brother and I compiled a book of some of the memorable highlights of her life. One of the most vivid was the trip she and my dad took from Casper, Wyo., to California in 1919.

With some food and not much money, but with unlimited nerve, they took off for the so-called Golden State in a much used Buick touring car. They slept in the car and cooked in a pan, which they put on two stones and built a fire underneath. It worked fine.

But the roads were such that it was difficult to make very good time. The sand was a foot deep in many places. They got to Salt Lake City, where they visited the Mormon Temple grounds, before taking off on more rugged roads and high adventure.

Not far beyond Cedar City, Utah, they had their first "real car trouble." The transmission went out. They parked the car at the side of the road and my dad jacked up the car, disassembled the transmission and walked and hitchhiked back to Cedar City. There he bought some used parts, walked back and repaired the car. (His mechanical genes, unfortunately, were not passed on to me.)

My mother stayed with the car when my dad went for parts. She commented, "I wouldn't want to do that in this day and age."

They drove only during the day. The desert was hot and dusty. Sometimes they'd get stuck in the sand and would have to shovel the sand from under the wheels. It was very slow traveling. She said, "We were the only people traveling, or so it seemed. I still can't see how we did it."

It took a week before reaching Barstow, Calif. "We were about out of food and money," she said. "We parked the car under a shaded lean-to built for motorists and their vehicles." There they met a Mr. Kennedy, who realized their plight and befriended them. He said he'd take them with him into Los Angeles. They agreed to go with him and simply abandoned the dilapidated Buick right there in Barstow.

She said, "Mr. Kennedy's wife had left him and he was glad to help us. He owned a hardware store on Seventh Street. We stayed at the Kennedy home for a few days." My dad went right out looking for work and found a job washing dishes for awhile and then worked in a battery shop. They rented a room with cooking privileges - the hot plate was in the clothes closet. Mom found work at the Sun Drug Store on Seventh and Broadway in downtown Los Angeles.

Eventually, she was transferred to a Sun Drug Store in Hollywood and my dad found work in the post office. Within a short time the young couple "discovered" the Laurel Canyon area, where they managed to buy some lots and in his spare time Dad built three houses (I didn't inherit his carpentry skills either).

During World War I, Dad was an aircraft mechanic and survived three crashes. The last one left him with a head injury that eventually was blamed for his death from cerebral hemorrhage in 1934.

Mom took many more trips in her 93 years, but she always referred to the 1919 adventure as "the trip to remember."