A Suitcase and the Open Road

17 May, 2014

Houston

"Highways are happy ways, when they lead the way to home;

Highways brig happy days, to those broken hearts that rome!

And as you travel along those ribbons of grey,

They all unravel, and pull you homeward to stay!

So Highways are happy ways - when they lead the way to home!"

                           ---written in 1900 by Harry Harris, Tommie Malie,  & Larry Shay
                           It became popular again during WWI and was redone by the Everly Bros.

A suitcase and the open road are two of the three faithful companions of a traveling salesman: He has his life packed in a beat-up old grip, and spends most of that life on the highway, far from his family and friends.

His third companion? Loneliness, of course! His customers, the hotel desk clerk, the bartender in the hotel lounge, and the waitress who brings him his bacon, eggs, and coffee for breakfast at the motel restaurant are no substitute for being home.

Loneliness is a salesman's constant companion, more loyal than only the very best of friends. Your wife is a faraway voice at the other end of the phone. Your children are tiny pictures in a worn-out wallet.

Life is a trade-off: an honest man must take precious time from his loved ones, in order to provide for them. The payoff is arriving home on Friday nights. The car pulls into the driveway and the front door opens. In the doorway stands the one you love most in life - perhaps more than life itself.

She stands there smiling for a brief moment, and as she does, a little child or two or three rush by her and run straight up to you, hugging and clinging to you as if it had been a whole year since they saw you last.

You don't find that strange, because you, too, feel that very same way.

The fond embrace from your wife reminds you of why you get up every morning, and why you carry that bag down the road, and why nobody else could ever take her place. Suddenly it all becomes clear once more, and you get to enjoy the fruits of your labor, if only for a couple of days. Then all too soon, Tuesday morning dawns, you pack your car, wave goodbye, and head out to do it all over again.

That was my life in the mid-Seventies. One week followed another, the weeks became years, and the children grew.

One day, while I was on the road between one nameless town and another, my little boy, my middle child who was just three years old, had just begun to make sentences.

I missed that. I missed a lot of things.

One day he asked my wife where I was. She explained, as best as a mother can to a three-year-old, that I was away in the car.

He looked up at her with sad eyes and said: "Daddy car too much!" He was right.

Summer finally arrived, and my oldest child, a daughter, was out of school. My next trip was to Shreveport - a long haul - and I suggested the whole family come along.

I had done this on numerous occasions when the children were babies. With my oldest now in school, outings such as this were few and far between.

I was determined to change that as best I could. So we packed up the aging compact car to the gills and headed out onto the highway.

It was an easy trip for a short while. Thanks to a newly-built Interstate highway we quickly arrived in Baton Rouge. There the new, modern, wide, divided superhighway we had been travelling on up until now continued on its way west. In its place unraveled before us a skinny, narrow two-lane, two-way ribbon of grey asphalt that I had gotten accustom to driving on in my constant travels.

After a lunch and a sales call or two in Alexandria, we continued north to Shreveport on Highway 71. We were making pretty good time, too, until, once again, my car broke down. We were stranded just north of a small town, off - just BARELY off - of the highway, on a questionable shoulder.

Now, this was not the first time that a car had left me in the lurch - not by ANY means. I drove a compact car for a good reason. My motto back then was: "NEVER buy a car bigger than you can PUSH!"

It would have been bad enough had I been by myself, but now my family was in the car, too! It was mid-afternoon, and there wasn't a town, a gas station, a farmhouse, or even a pay telephone in sight. It seemed as though we were out of luck. 

We were there for only a few minutes, contemplating our situation, when a man stopped by and asked us if we needed help. We definitely needed assistance, and badly.

Of all things, he turned out to be the only mechanic in a town we had passed several miles back! What are the chances of that? He gave us a lift to the town, went back for the car in his wrecker, and even drove us up to the motel in Shreveport!

We made the best of things while the car was in the shop: we enjoyed a few quiet days of rest, relaxation, and family time at the motel. I was also able to make a number of sales calls by phone, and even got some orders.

Friday came and I finally got the call that the car was ready. The man came up to Shreveport, picked me up, took me down to his shop, and I drove back to the motel for my wife and children.

What had to be done to the car was expensive, but was cheaper, I am quite sure, than if I had had the work done in a large city. As far the driving us to Shreveport and picking me up later - there was no charge.

There was no price tag in human kindness and caring.

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EPILOGUE:

When we checked into the motel room, we made a crib of sorts for our six-month-old baby out of two chairs that were part of the room's furnishings. We moved those chairs to where our baby was to sleep for four nights. It was in doing so that we noticed something, and did so to our abject HORROR! We saw a large spider nest containing several spiders.

What kind were they?

Highly deadly BROWN RECLUSE spiders!!!

We had made a bed for our infant son directly under their nest!

(We complained loudly to the manager, and they moved us to another room immediately. Suffice it to say we checked that new room thoroughly, and all others from then on!)