Colorado, Part I

For those who have been faithfully reading for more than a couple years. This post is a rewrite (not just a re-post) from my old MySpace blog “Diesel Fumes”

In the summer of 1976 I often accompanied my dad to his summer job at a nearby summer camp. We had a used Chevy van. It wasn't the cool '70s van you may be thinking of. This was a family van with windows all around and a sensible one-tone blue paint job. It was largely an empty shell with just the two front seats and a single bench behind, no interior treatments like paneling or carpet, no air conditioning, AM radio; no frills. My dad found it useful to haul lumber and things for his projects around the house.

My dad, my brother and I were busy that summer customizing the van for a particular purpose: a camper for what would be the most adventurous family vacation we had ever (or perhaps would ever) take.

We didn't have a lot of money for vacations and camping was what would make this possible, but we didn't have a lot of money to customize the van either, so my father's ingenious design was innovative, practical and economical.

The first thing we did was to take the bench seat out and remount it backwards using the same bolt holes. This caused the back of the bench seat to press up against the backs of the front seats. On the driver's side of the van my dad built a wooden bench that extended back from the edge of now backwards stock bench seat to just beyond the wheel well. We covered foam padding in cloth and vinyl cases for both the seat and the backrest.

On the opposite side, just aft of the sliding van door, my dad built a series of cubbyhole shelves—two levels of four. These square cubbys would contain a cardboard box for each member of the family and contain our clothes. The extra cubbies had boxes for toiletries and other storage. Under the benches was room for more storage of things like sleeping bags.

At the rear of the van was my dad's piece-de-resistance: the chuck wagon. It was a self-contained camping kitchen that took up the last 3 feet of the van. When camped, we simply opened the rear doors of the van and folded down a horizontal door that hung flat on a couple of chains to become a work area. If it was raining a tarp could be easily rigged over the open doors. Everything from the Coleman cooler and kerosene stove to the food stuffs, plates, cups and silverware was within easy reach in an efficient arrangement of shelves and cabinets. There was even a place for spices and the like. Off to one side of the chuck wagon was room to store the tent, tarp, some tools and other camping hardware.

I remember at the time being disappointed that the 'kitchen' he'd talked about was not inside the van. I had fantasies about making myself a sandwich anytime I wanted as we rolled down the highway.

On the inside of the van, with the addition of a foam mattress, the chuck wagon also doubled as a bed. Just in front of the chuck wagon my dad placed another short bench, the only seat in the rear that faced forward; one of the places I most liked to sit.

Between the benches and the cubbyholes was a table, that could be lowered and mattressed to form a bed that included the surrounding benches. The bed could sleep two adults and the chuckwagon, one child. The remaining two people slept in a tent.

I created this little illustration in Google Sketchup then added text in Photoshop

Curtains were added to all the windows with simple string curtain rods and a vent was installed in the roof .

I realized as I transcribed my journal that we actually installed the curtains later while on the road).

It was a camper!

I remember painting the interior elements (blue) while my dad taught woodcraft at 4H camp. I was a travel junky when I was a kid so I was dizzy with excitement for the biggest, longest journey we were about to embark on.

It had all started in my sixth grade class. Mr. Keller had asked us to pick a state and do a report on it. I had recently seen the whacky Disney comedy “Snowball Express” in which Dean Jones inherits a run-down ski resort in Colorado. So naturally, I picked Colorado.

I contacted the board of tourism for “Colorful Colorado” to request information. A week or so later the biggest fattest envelope ever to bear my own name was curled up in the mailbox. I had struck gold! The envelope was full of pamphlets, maps, information sheets, colorful pictures of mountains, people on horseback, skiing, climbing mountains...

 As memory serves, this was the exactvbrochure I got in the mail
(minus the URL added at the bottom of a site where one can buy other vintage Colorado stuff)

“That should give you plenty of material for your report.” My mother said.

Report? What report, I want to live there! Now!

My parent's had just read James Michener's “Centennial” which is a historic novel of Colorado and the region. My Mom's cousin Chuck lived in Colorado and there were college friends of my parent's scattered across the Midwest so my report and a rather thick novel turned into an adventure!

It was hard to believe it was real when our blue Chevy Van rolled out of our driveway and up our gravel road.

We were off!

Traveling in the van was the best! It was so novel to be rolling down the road while sitting at a table and doing puzzles, drawing pictures or writing in the journal my mom had us keep.

To get from the front seat to the back area, one would have to crawl over or under the bench seat or stop the car and enter through the sliding door. This was actually kind of a cool thing making the rear of the van a sort of no-adults allowed club house. One of my favorite places to be was on the Chuck wagon bed in the very back. I could lie down and still look out the windows with a high enough vantage point to look at cute girls my age in the backs of cars and almost look truckers in the eye when I made the 'pull-the-cord-honk-your-horn' gesture.

Unlike the first rendition of this story, this time I am going to post each humiliating page of my journal. Don't worry, you won't have to try to read it, I transcribed text following each with notes in italics. You can click on any of them to see them in their full embarrassing detail.

Sun aug 15, 1976
NY, Penn & Ohio

We are going through Bufulow (Buffalo) on the N.Y. State Thruway. Now we are crossing the switchyards. Boy, Buffalow stinks! We were, and still are, putting signs in the window that said -”Be happy” and stuff like that. I just saw some people riding a motorcycle, they had parked under a bridge and were putting on their wet suits (rain suits).

We are all happy.

We are going through Angola (New York) and are seeing a lot. We just went under a footbridge that had a roof on it.

My wife was thrilled reading this journal that she recognized and had walked on that very footbridge -there is a center island rest area on the New York State Thruway near Angola that the bridge leads to. Stopping there has been a tradition for she and I on all of our cross country treks.

I am seeing a lot of linences (license plates) like Ontario, Ohio, Washington, Florida and so on. We saw a camper that looks like a space vecal (vehicle)

I know now it was an Airsteam trailer I had seen.

Here comes a convoy of busus ware. (Honestly, I can't figure out what I meant by "ware". I remember that the song “Convoy” was a big hit that summer and CB radios were all the rage.) Passing by is a bunch of reel old and cool cars.

I am going to rest now. I will write when I get to Canton Ohio.

We spent the night with a college buddy of my father's in Canton. He had a son who was a few years older than I, who I liked a lot. He was quite intelligent and apparently tolerant of an eleven-year-old kid following him around. He had some cool science gear and taught me the difference between centrifugal and centripetal force. I would have liked to stay and learn more from him, but it was just an overnight stay and there were many miles still between us and Colorado. 

aug 16 '76

Ohio and Ind.

We had a good time at Majetch's (Majetich's) house and are on 30 West and our next stop is Indiana.

I have started a license plate collection and I've got a blue and white Ohio license plate.

Ohio is a very industrial state. There's lots of steel mills and factories and it smelled worse than Buffalow.

It is very quiet. Everyone is asleep except for Dad and I. We are coming to Ashland now and I'm getting a bit sleepy but I have to stay up and navagate so I thought I'd show you a map of the van.

Kinda neat huh? If you can understand it.

My dad drove most of the time. My mom would get frustrated trying to interpret the map the way he wanted, so she was glad to pass the job of navigator on to me. So I was the keeper of the maps and let my Dad know when that next turn/exit was coming. I loved maps and was very proud of my duty. I'm not sure if my parents meant it to be an esteem building exercise, but it sure was.

I took a nap and fell asleep listening to Matt (my brother) and Mom argue over navigating.

You see! Where would they have been without me?

Now Mom is driving and Dad is making curtains for the van since we were so busy fitting and filling up the van for the past few weeks.

I can't wait to get home because... The rest is scribbled out. It goes on to say how I am in love with a certain girl and when I hold it up to the light I can just make out who, Here, you try it. ;) 

We're going through Cincanaty (Cincinnati) Ohio.

aug 17 1976

Indiana, Ohio

We stopped in Indiana (in Evansville) for the night and had lots of fun. But I dread going to St. Louy (St. Louis) tonight . It is our longest and worst stop for there's a kid I hate named Danny Widdis.

We stayed with the “Wades” near Evansville (Southern) Indian—more college friends of my dad. They had a newly built house among a glade of tall trees. They had a boy my age, Eric and a girl a bit younger, Sonya (I'm making a guess at their names actually). Sonya and my sister Kelly, then almost six years old, became fast friends and my brother and I enjoyed hanging out with Eric. There was a lot of giggly flirtation between the girl and boy factions, the quasi-adversarial 'kooty' kind.

They spoke with deep Hoosiers accents,“ten” was “ta-in, and “help” also had two syllables “hey-elp”. As I listened to them talk I had a revelation.

“Do my brother and I talk funny to you?” I asked them both.

“Yoo shur doo!” they chorused.

Lesson learned.

My sister slept in Sonya's room and Eric spent the night in the van with Matt and I. It was our first time sleeping in the van (the table/bed in the lower position).

I did indeed dread seeing Danny, the son of yet another of my parents' college friends—my mom's this time, that lived in St. Louis. Danny was a jerk; there's no other (polite) way of putting it. They used to live closer, so I knew Danny and knew what was in store. Perhaps I shouldn't have prejudged our enjoyment, as we did have a pretty memorable time in St. Louis as it turned out, but then again; Danny the jerk did not disappoint.

On to Colorado Part II: https://joeltjohnson.blogspot.com/2011/08/colorado-part-ii.html

DOUBLE J's Double Take

A Music & Personal Update

I have been a bad boy and not rehearsed all week. I had it in my mind to rehearse later in the week then got called for some work the last two days of the week. The first was a thing for Conan O'Brien (no I didn't see him). The diet progresses well I am down 18 pounds after four weeks. I cheated on Sunday when I worked at Tennis Channel for 16 hours and left my own healthy food at home. I had a couple chocolate chip cookies (the only other thing available were Togo subs each with a minefield of mustard smeared on them--nope, I won't do mustard for anything!) and I had a meatball sandwich later when we ordered. I could have ordered a salad I know but after 12 hours that that point I was in dire need of protein! This week I have been on all fruits and veggies (and some nuts). The no-meat-no-dairy-no-wheat-no-sugar  thing I was on was tolerable but I can't wait to get back to it after a week of sticks and twigs. I'm sorry, I just can't get into vegetables, or even fruit on this level. My saving grace has been the smoothies my wife has been making for me. I dreamed I was eating a burrito the other night.