With my nose pressed against the window
of my Dad’s four door blue and white Chevrolet
I watch huge tractor trailers
pass us by on the Jersey Turnpike.

Like a dog out for a drive
my breath steams the glass
making me use my pajama clothed arm
to wipe it clean.

Towering signs of oil refinery’s,
monstrous round tanks with connecting pipes
crisscrossing back and forth like metal pick up sticks,
smells of burning petro coming from waste stacks,
like sentinel candles flickering in the night sky
showing the way home for oil rigs
looking to deposit their cargo.

On we drive, sharing the road,
staying between the white striped lines,
keeping the speed at a steady rate.
Molly Pitcher our next rest stop,
oh so we all thought.

My Dad didn’t like to stop
“Straight thru to Grandma’s” he would say.
Never mind trying to do the bathroom dance
to get him to stop.
You see he had it all worked out.
Clorox came in a big white plastic bottle,
my mother used it to get our whites white,
father brought it along for us kids.

Well as you guessed it, me and my two brothers,
being young boys, had no problem
fitting into that bottle when natured called.
If it’s not peeing in a commode it’s peeing in Clorox bottles.
Grown up’s sure don’t know how much easier
it is peeing in the shower.

Having gotten that out of the way
I grabbed my pillow,
crawled up to the back window shelf
where the speakers were
sitting between them the dog
who’s head bobbed up and down.

There I lay with a blanket over me
looking out the window again.
I gaze into the evening night sky,
praying to God we don’t come to a sudden stop
I would be flying,
flying right thru the front windshield.
Never did hear about seatbelts back then.

Sleep was like a magical mystery ride.
One minute its noise of Goodyear tires
rolling down the highway,
occasional horns from a Kenmore or Mac truck,
radio stations fading in and out,
as we pass between state lines,
Cousin Brucey talking about the Beatles
Wolfman Jack howling at midnight
Conway Twitty crying about his horse.

The next minute I would hear my mother say,
“We are here children”.
Father turns down the long dusty dirt driveway,
passing the big pond on the left,
headed straight to the green tinned roof white house
nestled behind the big maple trees.
The long and winding road ends at Grandma’s house.