CHRIS ARVIDSON

words and art
 

Jun 30, 2010 6:10 AM EDT

Hey Chrissy, thanks for sharing your trip down memory lane. Enjoyed reading it and learned something new about you -- you were a California girl at one time!

- Kathy Finnie

Jun 30, 2010 7:43 AM EDT

We had a '57 Ford Fairlane 500, light blue & white. It never got to, but burned up roads connecting every lumber dealer north of Virginia and east of the Mississippi. When the engine died, Daddy had the local dealer drop in a used Thunderbird V-8. It became the dirt track champion of southern Wake County. They don't make cars like they used to!

- Mary O

Jun 30, 2010 8:06 AM EDT

Holy crap MOJ, are you sure you aren't from Detroit-a T-bird V8!

- Chris Arvidson

Jun 30, 2010 4:14 PM EDT

The stars in your dad's eyes, although a milder version, I imagine, remind me of The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. I loved the way her dad could make things so magical for her.

The closest I came to a "cross country" trip at that age was actually "cross state" from Asheville to Wilmington. And we were a Chevy family, at least until daddy got pissed off with a salesman at the dealership and went across the street and bought a Falcon (which later became the famed vehicle in which I learned to drive). But the remembered cross state trip was in a dark green 1955 Chevy (I'm older than you kids) with upholstery made of a basket-weave of multi-bright-colored plastic strands. I thought it was very grand. But the most remembered event of the trip was a whipping that daddy gave me and my brother (one of only two I can every remember from him) when we were completely unable to "settle down". After a couple of stern warnings, I remember hearing and feeling the gravel under the tires and I knew we were actually "in for it". Fortunately, the soothing calm of the ocean awaited.

- Lynda

Jun 30, 2010 4:21 PM EDT

Loved those mesh seats and loved those Falcons. My Jr & Sr HS friend Ricky's dad had a red Falcon. We got in big trouble putting major miles on that puppy.

- Chris Arvidson

Jul 01, 2010 12:26 AM EDT

Rhe sheer scale is what's mind-boggling. I'm pretty sure neither of my parents drove a car much further than Penrith or Carisle in their entire lives. (I have a disinct memory, age c 11 of my father driving us from one junction to the next of the M6 near Penrith - I'm pretty sure his one and only experience of motoryway driving). The nearest thing to the Grapes Of Wrath we ever exeprienced was a Sunday afternoon excursion to Keswick . . .

- Nick

Jul 01, 2010 2:58 AM EDT

Yes, but how far did he go sailing a ship?

- Chris Arvidson

Jul 01, 2010 4:24 PM EDT

Family Vacation memories from childhood...
Summer of 1962: My folks drove from Grinnell,Iowa to Disneyland with us three kids. I don't remember it but the story goes that Dad ran into a Grinnell High School classmate in the parking lot of Disneyland. It's a small world!
Summer of 1968: Five kids in a pick up this a camper on it.
The folks thought I was with the boys in the back. The boys thought I was with the folks in the front. I got left behind at a gas station in nowhere S. Dakota. But, I chased the truck to catch it before it got back out on the road! I remember jumping up to knock on the window of the truck because I was too short to be visible otherwise and I was able to get Mom's attention. I don't recall being scared. My truck chasing became the most repeated of all family stories!
Chris, thanks for making me think back to old crossings!

- Neev

Jul 01, 2010 5:00 PM EDT

Neev, this is TOO funny!

- Chris Arvidson