MEMOIR
Riding In the Way-Way Back of the Station Wagon
A place where children in bell-bottom jumpsuits play…
He honked the horn and leaned out the window giving an enthusiastic thumbs up to the family van in front of us — one of those cool 1970s retro numbers with a kitchen table inside and white leather covered wheel on the back. His right hand reached for the radio knob and he pumped up the volume, much to the eye-rolling dismay of my mother in the passenger seat. I’ll never forget the song thumping through the speakers, it will forever make me think of my dad and our one big family vacation we took in 1978 to Old Orchard Beach, Maine; the song was Miss You by The Rolling Stones.
Only a year later they would divorce. But it was the happiest I remember them.
Perhaps it was the ocean air or the summer vacation we took with their best friends, or maybe it was all a facade I was too young to see through. The…
