"Take Me Home, Country Roads" (part 3)

No, not quite yet ... those lyrics by John Denver (1971) were played over and over competing for the likes of "Good Morning Starshine"and "Jean", by the singer Oliver ... let's not forget Jim Neighbors, Percy Faith ... and Glen Campbell too! Imagine the chorus of five out-of-tuners singing as we rolled along open highways. STOP RIGHT THERE ... now back to the story ... Once we were past the city of no return, Albuquerque, Dad lightened up a bit on his lead foot. There were sights to see, wide open spaces, new freeways to navigate, and a few side trips to places such as Four Corners, Dog Patch USA, Nashville and even some caves. To wile away the hours, we kids would play Auto Bingo, read comic books, doodle on our magic erase pad, count mile markers, be assigned a certain color of car to spot, and saw some zzzzzz's. Mom would be the navigator and for the most part kept Dad on the right path. But sometimes he thought she was wrong and would chart a new course taking us out of the way, driving on fumes, while we were all a pray'in that we wouldn't run out of gas in the middle of nowhere. The baby of our family, my brother Kevin, would have his own way of amusing himself and annoying the heck out of the rest of us. His self assigned job was to inspect each public restroom for cleanliness giving it a grade. My older brother, Chris, didn't escape oddities; his job was to keep track of how much food everyone ate.

By the time we finally reached Grandma's we had to peel ourselves out of the car and stand upright for hours. Shake if off, Shake if off!