The Airstream
Searching for Summer
For about twenty years, a 1976 Airstream provided our large family with housing on many trips to Florida. The sheer number of us riding together in one car and sleeping in a trailer defied imagination. As the youngest, my view surfaced from the furthest back seat, the snake pit, amidst a pile of gum wrappers, books with torn covers, orange peels, and siblings.
If bodies clashed, so did personalities. Through three days of cramped and monotonous driving, we rode waves of laughter, song, and conversation, crashing into fights over toys or just basic sibling cruelty. In between the highs and lows we floated through long periods of silent staring out windows or sleeping. I looked through the length of the car to the windshield, contemplating bugs as they hit the glass. The road sprawled ahead, a recurring thump thump of highway beneath our tires. The Airstream, a sleek silver bullet, accompanied us, secured, weaving slightly from behind.
Every once in a while, I fought cart sickness in order to look at the tangle of colored lines and place names inside the road atlas. My finger followed the states that led to Florida: Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia... We anxiously awaited the South of the Border billboards which appeared first in North Carolina. Pedro says the signs reminded us. We loved anticipating them, counting them, but we never stopped there. Mom called it a tourist trap so we whizzed past without even slowing down.
The days of driving rolled by. We sang “Found a Peanut” and “One Hundred Bottles of Beer” on repeat, the energy amping up as we approached Florida. The sight of palm trees moved us from slouched and sleepy to alert and upright. My sister and I turned to face each other in the back seat. Forgetting why we hated each other just an hour before, we slapped our hands together in excitement: Miss Mary Mac Mac Mac.
Cobleskill
The Airstream didn’t just go to Florida, for a long time it acted as Dad’s hotel- on -wheels. Dad headed a big construction project in Cobleskill, about two hours northeast from our hometown, Newburgh, NY. Each week for eight years, he left us on Monday mornings and returned Friday nights. In the summer, Dad brought the Airstream to Cobleskill and parked outside of town in a campground called Twin Oaks. Mom and my sisters and I lived with him there two weeks on and then one week at home, alternating for the entire summer. We kids complained bitterly about this arrangement, claiming intense boredom. Liberated from her tireless grind of cleaning and cooking for seven kids, Mom found a kind of heaven living in the Airstream in Cobleskill. She mapped out trips to museums, shops, even a place with a huge park and a pool. In the trailer, we heated frozen French bread pizzas for lunch and sat outside in folding chairs chewing grape Bubble Yum bubble gum. Many mornings, we picked up a few powdered jellies at the doughnut shop. Evenings, we drove over to the Dairy Barn for a chocolate vanilla twist.
We were also allowed to investigate the campground by ourselves. For the boring hour when Mom napped, we invented a sick game where we’d tie one of us up with clothes line, stringing ankles together and fastening hands behind backs, shoving a piece of cloth in the mouth, a gag . Then, the two untethered sisters commenced on a leisurely stroll around the campground’s trails. If the bound sister got free by the time the other two returned, then she won. If she remained constrained, she lost. This backfired only once, when one sister panicked and swung her legs to the side of the trailer, beating against the wall to get Mom’s help. Game over.
Streaming
As a bourgeoning teenager, I lost interest in the fate of our Airstream which sat aging, unused behind our Newburgh barn. I never thought to turn it into a clubhouse or teen hangout or something cool. Back then, I cared about clothes and boys and friends, all the typical things. I hardly noticed when my parents put an ad in the paper and sold our Airstream. I was oblivious when the new owners came to the house, hooked our home- away-from-home to the back of their truck and dragged the Airstream away into the fabric of another family, another life.
