Sometimes I go on these little journeys into the past,
remembering the way things used to be done. I am literally so accustomed to the
Google search process and so trusting that all will be well when the correct
facts are presented to me in the search results, that I have to sit and think a
bit about “before the internet.”
Back in the day – as they say – when you were on a road trip
and you were thinking, hmm, where am I going to sleep tonight? You really
couldn’t just open up your cell phone there on the seat next to you and while
driving, which you shouldn’t do, tell Siri to find you a hotel room “near
me.” You couldn’t stop for a bit at the
side of the road and do a Google search for “Cheyenne Wyoming lodging.”
There was a dial phone (ONE PHONE) at home, and it had a
cord, so when you spoke with someone on the phone, you stood/sat by the
phone. You probably did not do anything
else but TALK ON THE PHONE, unless the phone was near the kitchen and you could
watch a pot on the stove or adventurously take a pan of brownies out of the
oven. You made very few LONG DISTANCE
CALLS, and if you did, it was on Sunday night or after 11 pm, and you tried to
KEEP IT SHORT.
DETOUR: I remember talking on the phone with my father in
the summer of 1961, while he served some Peace Corps time over in Nigeria. I
was in Milwaukee. It was a
once-in-a-blue-moon thing, to talk on the phone with someone who was on another
continent. I can still remember how far
away he sounded. I was ten.
Back to the hotel search.
Planning a road trip was simple. You got out your PAPER MAPS
and plotted out your drive (Milwaukee to North Miami Beach via US Hwy 41, for
example).
It got more exciting a few years later when you could call
up AAA (wasn’t everyone a member? I thought so) and they would create a TRIPTIK
for you, which was a fascinating accumulation of facts, mileage, locations of
rest stops, and hotel/motel ratings. (Somehow,
there was a big difference between hotels and motels. MOTELS were less fancy.) The Triptik would COME IN THE MAIL before the
trip began, so you could start to get to know the ROUTE.
Anyway back to the Miami trip. I suppose there were people who made a plan –
OK, we’re going to travel 250 miles the first day, so that puts us about
Illinois/Indiana? How about Terre Haute, Indiana (you would not write IN for
Indiana, because that did not exist yet).
We could make PHONE RESERVATIONS before we leave Milwaukee, which would
be great because we’d know exactly where we were going to be at the end of that
first long day.
We could plan the whole trip that way before leaving, let’s
see at the end of Day Two…..Nashville, Tennessee! And Day Three….Marietta,
Georgia! And on and on. Because with
three kids, ages 8, 6, and 4, 250 miles a day is about right.
OR….we could just start looking for a hotel at about 4 pm or
so in Nashville, Marietta, and so on. So
you watch for hotel names on the billboards – HOWARD JOHNSON, 26 miles! Or the
COME-ON-INN just outside of Marietta.
And dad drives on up to the hotel and goes in to check and see if they
have a room for the night for the five of us.
They might. Or it might be
tournament time in town and there’s no rooms!
Now what? Sometimes, the desk
clerk at the Howard Johnson would be nice enough to tell you about a couple
other hotels/motels in the area, and maybe even call one of them and see if
they have a room. But sometimes dad
would just drive around, find a PHONE BOOTH, check out the motel listings in
the YELLOW PAGES, and call a couple.
We’re in the car, whining and fidgeting. Mom is smoking a CIGARETTE. IN THE CAR.
We’re in the car, whining and fidgeting. Mom is smoking a CIGARETTE. IN THE CAR.
We always found a place to sleep. It just involved a little more LEGWORK!
(I just remember how fabulous it felt when we finally got to
OUR ROOM.
No TV. No dial phone
(if you wanted to place a call, you CALLED THE OPERATOR). Sometimes an AM RADIO. The overall effect was muted colors, maybe
beige and gray? Odd pictures on the wall.
Heavy curtains.
Our little tree fort. Our cave for the night. Special!)
