The Saga of Myrtle Wood.....Long

[ribrepin]

When I was a child, my Dad took us on road trips to South Carolina every 6 or 7 years. My Dad was born and raised in South Carolina and missed down-home (his words) terribly. We would load up the family station wagon and point the car toward that small South Carolina town. My parents would switch off driving duties. We would drive straight through the night on first day out. If you needed a bathroom, you would have to hold it until the car needed gas. If you just couldn’t wait, my Dad would top off the tank so we could go farther before he had to stop again.


The last road trip to South Carolina was uneventful and the visit went well. My parents had brought a run-down shack on the water in Washington state and they were in the process of turning it into a very nice house with a view of the inland straight. My Dad was able to lay his hands on a good quantity free myrtle wood from South Carolina to use in the new house. South Carolina Myrtle wood was apparently highly superior to the West Coast myrtle wood. My parents were going to rent a U-haul, but my uncle talked my Dad into using some wood, an axle, some rims and tires that he had lying around. My father and uncle decided to build a trailer to drive the myrtle wood 3000 miles back the Washington State. My cousins the football players assisted them. As work progressed, my Mother looked more and more dubious.

We left South Carolina with our homemade trailer and got as far as the Kansas City freeway. At that point, one tire and rim gave up the ghost and went bouncing off the freeway. For whatever reason my Dad kept going to the next exit. We were shooting a 5-foot roost tail of sparks from the back of the trailer. People were honking, flashing their lights and gawking. We soon drew the attention of Kansas City’s finest. With the lights flashing, my Dad pulled over. My Mother leaned over the front seat and said to my sister and me that she didn’t know how we had made it that far with that trailer. I don’t know how he did it, but that cop agreed to lead us to nearest U-haul dealer with our trailer still shooting a tail of sparks…the cop must have been a myrtle wood lover. It was the middle of the night and the cop left us with strict instructions not to move until we had a proper U-haul trailer. I’m sure that good cop had a few stories to tell his fellow cops about the Grapes of Wrath tourists from Washington State who were digging holes in the Kansas City freeway. He’s probably still telling stories to his grandchildren…“Don’t go into police work grandson, you might have to deal with tourists from Washington State.”

We were waiting for U-haul dealer the next morning and were soon outfitted. Just one little problem that went unnoticed at the time. We had no spare trailer tire for our new trailer.

We were on our merry way again until we hit the wheat fields Nebraska. It was a very hot day. The local farmers later told us that it was 110 out on the prairie. We were soon to make the acquaintance of some wheat farmers. The tire on the newly rented trailer blew out. Now my Dad remembered the lecture from the cop in Kansas City about tearing up roads…so we sat and waited for someone to come along to give us a ride to the next town. I should mention that in 1970, people from Western Washington didn’t spend money on air conditioning…at least they didn’t in our small town. We waited and waited and no one drove by. Finally my Dad decided the cavalry was not coming and we started driving on the rim. Yes, we left grooves in the roads of Nebraska too. We finally came to a town and there were a lot of men sitting around at the place we stopped. When it’s that hot, the farmers do their work at night. More and more people kept showing up. It’s seems that U-haul trailer tires are a special size. The owner called around and said that they could get the right size tire from Omaha in three days. My parents needed to return to their jobs so this wasn’t acceptable. Everyone chewed this over and tried to come up with a solution. They finally figured out that a tire from a corn-husking machine would fit our trailer. I remember that tire cost $42.00. This was a lot of money in 1970 and we would hear about the price of that tire for a long time. My Dad pulled out his wallet and brought that corn-husking tire.

We were on our way again. Somewhere between the wheat fields of Nebraska and Cheyenne, Wyoming, our trusty car began to miss…badly. It’s hard on an engine digging holes in other people’s roads. In Cheyenne, we pulled into a truck stop with a mechanic on duty. The mechanic started working on our car and black smoke blew out the tail pipe. The mechanic said that we had a burnt value. My Dad’s paranoia had kicked in by now and he decided that there was a nationwide conspiracy to take every dime he had then or would ever have. He was muttering darkly about crooked mechanics out to take advantage of unsuspecting tourists and that we would have our honest mechanic at home fix the car. Our honest mechanic at home later fixed our burnt value. He chose to nurse the car 1,300 miles home. At this point, we were closing in on the Rockies. Now our car (putt-putt, sputter, sputter) was having trouble doing 45 miles an hour. My parents decided that climbing the Rockies would slow the car even further. Yes, the myrtle wood was still with us and we were going to tow it over the Rockies. That myrtle wood had become a cause worthy of stopping General Grant’s march to the sea.

In 1970, highway passes in the Rockies were not 4-lane and they were curvy. My parents decided that our best bet would be to cross the Rockies at night when there would be less traffic. There was less passenger car traffic. However, truckers drove those passes night and day and this is how we came to lead a convoy of truckers up the Rockies at 20 miles an hour. I mercifully slept through the whole thing and my Dad never mentioned any flashing lights or gestures from the truckers.

The rest of our trip home was slow, but uneventful.

Epilog
There were to be no more road trips to South Carolina. That was my last trip to the South. My Dad always flew for subsequent visits. My parent’s place of employment closed within a year and the house on the water got sold along with that South Carolina myrtle wood to finance their move to the suburbs of Seatle. I don’t believe U-haul ever reimbursed my Dad for that corn-husking tire in sprite of numerous of calls to Phoenix, AR. There were no 800 numbers in 1970. I sure my parents didn’t find this trip amusing; but it’s one of my most treasured memories of my parents and their sometimes dogged determination.