Let me tell you about Route 66 and my old man’s ’38 Desoto 4-door sedan, three-speed flathead six-banger. She cruised at 70 with not so much as a shudder. The year had to have been ’48 or ’49. I was 10 — my first year in double-digits. It was Summertime. Hot. Oh, yes, hot!

I look back and wonder why I called him “my old man” just now. As I was writing that first paragraph, it just seemed to go with the car and the times, I guess. Kinda gives the piece a Hemingway flavor.

As flavors go, I could do worse.

He was always Dad to me. I idolized my Dad. I felt safe when I was near him. Part of that was the revolver he brought along on vacation: a 38, I believe. Maybe a 45. It was holstered and slipped under the seat. He was not going to let anything happen to his family. He never told us that. But, he didn’t have to.

For all but those precious two weeks in June, Dad was a cop. When he flipped open his billfold, there, opposite his driver’s license, was his polished oval badge in gleaming bronze, with Redlands, CA., embossed in midnight blue across the curved top and Police Department raised in the same blue across the bottom. His two-digit badge number was in the center.  I don't recall the number.

When they would pull him over — oh, and they did pull him over, because Dad loved to drive fast! — I watched the wallet-flipping ritual time and again. Not once did he get a ticket. All this added to the magical cloak of invincibility into which his presence wrapped us. I don’t know whether Donna, who was three years older than I, felt this. Probably not.

Route 66, stretches like a diagonal caesarian slice across the hot belly of America; out of that incision, these restless fetal memories rise:

We hopped onto Route 66 just north of Palm Springs with Donna and me giggling in the back because Mom was reaching her arm over the seatback, extending it to within 6 inches of Donna’s and my faces.  “Just measuring the distance,” she said, but her eyes were soft, blue, and gentle. “Right now you’re just as sweet as you can be, but within an hour you’ll be at each other’s throat. Now, you listen to me. Don’t make me reach back and swat you!” Just to give it that extra authority, Dad would chime in, “Now you listen to your mother, kids. It’s gonna be a long trip.” At that point, Mom would finish with something like, “Oh, they hear me, George. They hear me ... they know.”

Thereupon, a glorious adventure began. It wouldn’t take long, though, before the bench seat in that ’38 Desoto started shrinking and Donna would slam a kneecap into mine, warning against my encroachment. What’s a guy gonna do? I shot a foot out, targeting her shin, and before long, predictably, across the seatback, Mom’s arm would fly and initiate a blurred swatting of our entangled arms and legs.

     My Fifteen Minutes of Fame

It was approaching dusk of the second or third day on Route 66. I was basking for most of the day in the glow of some well-earned family fame because of something that came from the mouth of my 10-year-old innocence.

It happened this way:

You see, I had acquired a pretty angry first-of-summer sunburn before our trip. And despite having Mom slather me with a half-jar of Noxema, by the second day my arms and shoulders were blistered. And itching like blazes. At one point, Mom bent over the seat and wagged a finger at me. “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a million times, don’t pick at those blisters, Junie.” Yes, that was the name folks called me, back then.

Reflexively, I answered, “I ain’t pickin’ any!”

Immediately, Dad’s voice echoed in the cabin of our ’38 Desoto, “What’d you say, Junie?”

“Well, I wasn’t!”

“No, no, I mean what did you say?” His eyes, in the rearview mirror, and his voice, didn’t seem mad. And for some reason, Mom was covering her mouth with her hand.

“I said, ‘I … ain’t picking any.’”

Mom’s burst of laughter blew her hand away from her mouth. “I-I-I-I ain’t a pickaninny!”

“I heard him, Clara,” Dad said, laughing so hard the car zagged on the roadway and he had to correct it. “I ain’t a pickaninny,” he said, breathlessly.

That got me laughing and repeating it twice, “I ain’t a pickaninny! I ain’t a pickaninny.” Whatever that combination of syllables meant was unimportant. The fact that they were laughing, and I was the cause of that jubilation — and it was all warm and good — was very important.

Donna was the only one not laughing. She was 13. She knew her little brother was undeserving of all the attention. “I don’t get it,” she said.

I patiently explained it to her: “I ain’t a pickaninny.” I don’t know whether it was Mom or Dad who laughed louder.

It was a good run, I guess, but even good runs run out of gas. I tested it again about an hour later. Mom crinkled up her eyes in a smile directed at me and below Dad’s winking eye in the rearview mirror, his voice said, “Yeah … heh-heh, yep.”

     The Body in the Road

I had just told you that it was getting close to dusk before my thoughts of all that hilarity earlier in the day sidetracked me. Everything was turning that kind of purply shade, somewhere near Carlsbad, New Mexico. It wasn't Carlsbad, but It was one of those tiny towns along Route 66 that Dad usually didn’t even slow down to go through. But from a few blocks away we could see the restaurant and beyond it a motel. It was dinner time, and Dad preferred not to drive at night.

“Please have a pool, have a pool, have a pool.” I chanted, my fingers-crossed, eyes-closed incantation in the back seat.

“Now, we’ll just check it out, kids,” Dad said. “Maybe take a look at the menu. You know your Mom prefers a truck stop.”

“You can’t go wrong eating where the truckers eat,” Mom seconded. “That’s for sure.”

“Oh-oh,” said Dad, and I looked up to see the brake lights two cars ahead go on, then the one directly in front of us flashed red.

Mom pressed the side of her head against the passenger window. “Oh, George, it looks like there’s someone lying in the street. There are people standing around him.

The third car up made a wide sweep around, going into the oncoming lane then back, and proceeded through to the other end of the town. The next car pulled forward. Mom had a clearer view, but I still couldn’t see anything. Dad pulled to the right dirt shoulder and turned off the engine. He got out, then stuck his head back in the car window.

“I’m going to see if I can help. Clara, keep the kids in the car. You kids, be good for your Mom.”

I felt fluttery inside, but I was sure proud of my Dad. Whatever had happened, he would make it all right again. He said something to the driver in the car in front of us, but they didn’t get out, and he disappeared around the front of that car.

“D’you think he’s dead, Mom?”

“Well, I can see a little more, now that we pulled over, but with the people milling around all I can see are his legs. I don’t know.” She put on her most ominous tone. “They’re sure not moving.”

After about five minutes Dad made his way back to the car, shaking his head. He opened the door and leaned inside. “Craziest thing you ever saw.”

“Was he dead, Dad? Was he dead?” Donna and I pressed into the seatback.

“That was sure my first thought. Everyone was standing around looking at him, but not doing anything. I told them I was a police officer and asked if they called for an ambulance. Everyone kinda mumbled and muttered, but didn’t answer me, so I got down on my knee. He was lying on his belly and his face was turned toward me with his eyes closed. I was about to check his carotid artery for a pulse when I noticed something strange. Between him and the pavement, which was hot as a skillet, was some kind of plastic blanket, like one of those mattresses you float on, but with all the air out, and tucked in around him.”

“What?” Mom interrupted.

“My thought exactly. Just at that moment, the man's eyes snap open and he gets this biggest grin you ever saw on his face. And all those people standing around started laughing, and he pops up to his feet. I don’t mind telling you, I don’t like being the butt of somebody’s joke, so I wasn’t sharing in their laughing.

“Then he says, ‘Howdy, Good Samaritan,’ and he fishes in his trousers for something, then drops two tokens in my palm. ‘Anyone who cares enough to stop and help his brother in need should be rewarded. Give one of these tokens to your waitress in Captain Jonas and you don’t pay one red cent for your and your family’s dinners. Then, after you finish eating, give the other token to the cashier at the Captain’s Rest Motel, over yonder, and enjoy a peaceful night’s sleep on us.’ It was just then I noticed the front part of his shirt and pants were different from the rest. I think it was made of some heat-resistant material.

“Well…” Dad finished by moving his smile to stop at each one of us in turn. “Hope you brought your most expensive appetites with you.”

     Captain Jonas’s Restaurant

I have to tell you about Captain Jonas’s Restaurant. It could be — it probably should be — a story of its own, but I’ll give you the shortened version. When I think of Dad’s tokens, the comparison easily comes to this old writer’s mind of Charlie’s golden ticket to Willie Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, but the movie would still be twenty years in young Junie’s future. Golden tickets were what Dad’s tokens were, though.

As soon as Dad placed the dinner token in the hand of the waitress who greeted us at the door, the grandest of smiles lit up her entire face. She escorted us to a special table. The moment we were seated, spotlights in the ceiling snapped on and dizzying swaths of light slashed our table while sirens blared, and all eyes in that restaurant were fixed on us. Never — I am sure — never will I ever feel such an electric celebrity as I felt that night.

After only fifteen or twenty seconds of this fandom, the siren was silenced, and the lights' crazy strafing stopped, leaving only a buttery circle around our table. And then, walking toward us was one who Dad instantly recognized; he whispered the mysterious name to us as being none other than Captain Jonas, himself. The Captain, now in a sportcoat and tie, stood at our table, his arms outstretched, as though offering us a collective hug.

“At last, the good Samaritan,” he said in a warm tone whose inference was wasted on that ten-year-old, but sounded to this writer like it issued from the mouth of Gene Wilder’s Willie Wanka, and was delivered to Charlie and Grandpa Joe just before Charlie took ownership of the Chocolate Factory. “You are the guests of honor at Captain Jonas’s. Eat whatever your heart desires, my lovely friends.”

And that’s what I did. I ordered a big t-bone steak with all the fixin’s, right along with Dad and Mom. Only Donna, who was always a bit of a stoic, ordered a cheeseburger, but then, at the last moment, doubled the order of fries. Donna and I ordered giant date malts. Dad and Mom had beers.

When the waitress stopped by to take our orders for dessert, she let her extra-special smile linger on me. I think she was my first-ever love interest.

“My, oh my,” she said; “in all my twenty-sompin’ years I swear I ain't never seen a meaner sunburn than yours. I bet your back and shoulders are one big blister.”

Dad and Mom were beginning to fidget in their chairs.

“I feel for you, Sweetie-Pie. I know yer Mama and Daddy’s takin’ good care of you, but be sure, no matter how much it itches that you don’t scratch it.”

Dad’s eyes got big as walnuts, and Mom was shaking her head and mouthing the word no to me. But it was too late. Once the sentence had formed in my head, there was no stopping it. Besides, why should I? With as much joy as my words gave Dad and Mom earlier, why, I would be ungrateful not to share them with the waitress ….

And so I did.

The End