Long Car Trips

Now that Phil and I have moved to the Gulf Coast of Florida, we have driven back and forth to New England many times. This summer (2020) we decided not to make the trip, but my mind travels to the long car trips I've made in my life. There were many ways we would help the time go by. I remember reading comic books in the back seat of the family car. My favorites were Wonder Woman, and the Archie and his pals comics. We'd listen to the radio (Amos & Andy, Fibber McGee and Molly,. George Burns and Gracie Allen, and more). We told stories, and played word games. I slept quit a bit, and we sang. We sang our way from coast to coast before we moved from Long Beach, California to Houston, Texas.

I've Been Working on the Railroad was usually one of the first songs that my family would sing when we were on a road trip. The singing tradition began when I was young and we drove from Houston, Texas to see my grandparents in Meadowview, Virginia. Later I continued the tradition with my own kids when we'd drive from Cleveland, Ohio to Holden, Massachusetts to visit my parents. I call it the "Car-singing Game". Now if there are grandchildren in the car, and we're driving an hour or two away from our home, we sing. When Phil and I are driving from Florida to Massachusetts, I usually pressure him for at least one game of Car-singing.

Here are the rules for the Green Car-singing game. One person starts to sing, and the others join in. When that song is finished, the next person initiates a song. We have a good number of songs we can sing together: songs from my Girl Scout days in Texas, Brown Ledge Camp years in Winooski, Vermont, songs my kids learned from their camp experiences and from Quaker retreats, and just silly songs like the ABC song or One Hundred Bottles of Beer on the Wall. (Although the dreadful beer song is greeted with groans and quickly discontinued.) The song-starter position is passed from one person to the next in a clockwise manner. No passing allowed. If the song-starter cannot think of a song, they can improvise a song or an even an opera. If the person doesn't want to sing, they can create a rhythm to share. The game is over when it's over. You can tell when it's over.