What started out to be a passing thought, turned out to be the trip of a lifetime. During the summer of 1965, my parents decided we would head to Prattsburgh, New York in a tomato red Rambler station wagon to see my mother’s oldest sister, Helen, and her only son, Keith. My dad had gotten his vacation pay and the three of us were up for an adventure. We were not disappointed.
To beat the heat, we left at 10 in the evening. Mom made me a bed of sorts in the back seat and we put our suitcase and cooler in the very back of the wagon. Dad had a stack of roadmaps folded neatly beside him, nearly four hundred dollars in his billfold, and my mother as his co-pilot. We seemed to be doing remarkably well until we left New Hampshire. That is when things got just a little murky.
The road maps lay defeated on the floor of the back seat and with some frustration, Dad handed the wheel over to my mother, his eyes cast toward the Heavens. We got lost in Albany. By this time, I was sitting in the tiny seat in the very back of the Rambler and I was facing backwards.
Even as a little girl, I have never been afraid of getting turned around, but after we passed the same street corner at least four times, I knew we were without a doubt just a bit off course. Mom miraculously got us back on the Interstate and we arrived in Prattsburgh in the late afternoon of our third day of travel. Our only layover was in Ithaca, where we rented a motel room, explored, shopped for souvenirs, and sampled New York cuisine.
Aunt Helen was waiting for us on her front porch, her arms outstretched. “Did you have a nice drive, my loves?” she asked. My mother immediately burst into tears. “Tom got us lost in Albany, Helen. It was horrible!”
I began to set the record straight regarding who really got us lost, but Dad held his fingers to his lips. “Shhh, Belinda. Let it be. It’s a sister thing.” I was to learn all about that “sister thing” years later when my own sister was born.
It was hot. Air conditioning was nearly unheard of during that era, so open car windows were a necessity for survival. Before we left Caribou, my mom had carefully braided my hair, hoping the style would be cool and easily manageable in the humidity. On the day after our arrival, I found myself sitting in a barber’s chair in downtown Prattsburgh; two newly cut, severely tangled braids at my feet.
Each night, we slept in Aunt Helen’s living room with the windows wide open and a very large, round fan at the foot of the bed she had brought downstairs for us to sleep in. I would lay there between my parents, those two severed braids clutched tightly in my fist. Mom and Dad would whisper; reliving the day and laughing quietly about the long, long trip to New York, my experience in the barber shop, and losing our way. My mother would slip her fingers into my hair; her breath satin against my cheek and I knew then, as I know now, that as long as they are with me, I will never be lost.
Belinda Wilcox Ouellette lives Connor TWP with her husband Dale and their Goldendoodle Barney. They are currently working on building a home in Caribou. You may contact Belinda online at: dbwouellette@ maine.rr.com.
