Author: Edward Guenther
Uploaded: November 11th, 2011
It was decided that the whole crew would visit the Portland Zoo. This would require two cars: Ma’s 1955 Dodge Wagon for the girls and Pa’s 1951 Packard for the boys. Pa bought that Packard because the car guy told him it was a classic and would only gain in value. It never did for Pa. Ma’s wagon was in good shape except for the broom handle keeping the door shut.
They left at 4:00 a.m., which was always Pa’s way of getting things going. Not seven miles from home and Ma pulled over with disaster! One of the girls was hanging her head out the window. It didn’t look good, the boys figuring it to be some rare disease, which Pa confirmed by saying that the girls’ car had car sickness.
Pa was not the best traveling companion and the trip was long in the boys’ car, but the girls faired better with Ma’s encouraging words, “Your Pa knows what he is doing.”
Notwithstanding, Pa really did not know what he was doing!
Finally the zoo was reached. The troop was too tired to remember any of the animals and started grumbling for lunch and a bed, but when they got out to the car, Pa could not get the Packard to go. He propped the hood up, left the keys in the ignition, and said, “Maybe somebody will steal it and take it off our hands.” Then we trooped back into the zoo, for, unfortunately, they had all-day passes!
Returning to the no good car, Pa proceeded to have Ma push his car with hers all around the parking lot to no avail. The troop was mighty hungry by now and little beads of sweat appeared on Pa’s forehead as Ma kept bashing him from behind. Pa kept yelling something at her but it was hard to understand the words. Finally Pa parked it.
A stranger appeared, looking intently into the opened engine. “Battery cables disconnected,” he announced. He quickly wired it up and away they went with Pa’s good deal car.
With Pa leading the way, they got lost looking for cousins Gertrude and Walter where they were to stay the night. It was some funny the way Pa kept referring to those streets as a cockeyed mess, but Ma just kept faithfully on his tail, sometimes even that appeared to be an annoyance to Pa. He could be hard to figure.
That night Gertrude pulled out her slideshow of Europe. The kids watched the turntable of slides go round one at a time, hoping against hope that the third and final tray would end. It finally did, but then to everyone’s horror Cousin Gertrude put those aside and reached to endless pile of trays and selected three more! Eddy edged up to Pa and said, “Can I go to bed now?” Pa flashed, “Oh shut up!” Pa had never said that before, so Eddy didn’t ask to leave again.
That night Pa and Ma suddenly decided that we needed to hit the road early and nobody argued!
Seven miles from home the ol’ Packard clunked out for the last time. They limped in with Ma’s wagon. Pa got shut of that Packard.