Looking for America • Mary Linard

Looking back…. way, way back….when our boys were still in knee pants, we had some wonderful, beautiful camping trips. Every time I hear a certain song, memories of those trips come flooding into my conscientiousness.

On the last day of school in June, the house would be a flurry of activity. We would rush about, getting in each other’s way, packing the car for the big trip. All the camping gear got priority in the back of the station wagon and all the other stuff had to fit around it. It was a much practiced art-form, but over the years we were good at it.

We would be all packed and ready to go the minute the bell rang and the kids got out of school, whooping and yelling, all smiles and laughter. We’d pick them up right at the school gate and squish them into the small space left for them, and then we were OFF! Our destination was Assateague Island, one of the finger islands running down the Maryland-Virginia border. J loved it for the beach and its warm water. Being an antipodean, he had never come to grips with icy cold beaches. I loved it for the State Park campground which offered, apart those natural wonders, the essentials of life for Moms who are co-opted into camping as a “holiday”. Said essentials being hot showers, flush toilets and spacious sites with picnic tables and fire-pits.

The almost 1000 km trip would take us about 10 hours driving and in those long-ago days our car was not equipped with an entertainment system. So, to keep the troops from mutiny we would bring along a cassette-tape-player. This device would be wedged between the front seats, volume up high so the back seat passengers could hear. A cardboard box full of cassettes would sit on the floor and we would play right through every one of them during the journey. Our younger son often requested what he called “the double songs”. We never knew why he called them the double songs. Maybe it was that he didn’t remember the names Simon and Garfunkle, or it was just a name he’d made up for them? However, the double songs got played often, and especially as we got to New Jersey. When we’d get to the Turnpike, both kids would demand to hear the track “Looking for America” and then the four of us would sing along boisterously:

“Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike, and we’ve all come to look for America”.

Fantastic holidays, fantastic memories. That song? It reminds me of younger, innocent, un-complicated days full of dreams and hope.