A Family Vacation
By: Wes Heimlich
Tags: Childhood, Life Lessons, Memories, Personal Histories, Nostalgia

photo: Ralph Kayden

Memories don’t always come from the vacation itinerary.

We were on our way back to Northern Ohio from a winter trip to Florida. It was around Christmas, in the year 1971. There were seven of us in the family and we traveled in a station-wagon and pulled an expandable camper-trailer behind us.

As we drove along, the thoughts in the back of the car, where my little brother and I were stationed, were on the many experiences we had been through. We had done some of the Florida pre-Disney attractions; we had visited Weeki Wachee and at twelve years old, I was young enough to have been amazed by the human mermaids; we saw Cyprus Gardens, an alligator farm, a citrus factory and stopped at a few all-you-can-drink orange juice attractions, which were really just a cover to sell perfume, soap, candles, oils and anything else that could be made to smell like orange blossoms, along with plates and ashtrays with “Visit Florida” written on them. In just a couple of weeks we had packed in a whole lot of memories.

In the front of the car, however, Mom and Dad were concentrating on the worsening road conditions as we drove North. They took turns driving, as speeds were affected by the snow storms and grey skies and it was difficult to see clearly. We finally made it to our home state of Ohio and we were starting to feel that tug of wanting to get home already.

Things had gone more or less smoothly, and as far as family vacations go, this one had been one of the better ones.

Our blissful peacefulness in the back of the car was interrupted when I felt a sharp change in the energy. I glanced towards the front of the car and saw my mother and father suddenly stiffen their poses. If there was a sound, it wasn’t even strong enough to make a “thump,” but there was definitely contact between the car behind us and our camper. On a normal day and under normal conditions, the contact wouldn’t have done much harm, but because it had been snowing heavily, there was ice and slush on the highway.

The bump caused the trailer to zig which caused the car to zag while still moving in a mostly forward direction. The next thing I knew, I heard my father’s voice say, “Hold on!” and we awkwardly slid off the road into the medium strip, with the trailer beginning the roll that would send our car tumbling.

I could only tend to myself in that moment, that very long, slow moment. I had only enough spare attention to know the presence of my brother, who was like me, in the back of the car with no restraints. As the car rolled, it felt as though time slowed. I seemed to be able to see where I needed to place my hands and where to place my feet to avoid the flying glass, unsecured items and compressing roof. I noticed that my brother was also feeling his way through the roll and we didn’t get in each other’s way.

My brother tells me that his memory of the event was of flying kumquats. Our recently discovered citrus fruit wasn’t going to make it home.

The snow cover made the sounds muted, including the final crunch of the car coming to rest upside down. Disoriented, I headed to where I could see light, and crawled out the back window. I noticed that the rear tires were both still quickly spinning.

The car was destroyed, as was the trailer. And incredibly, all seven of us somehow crawled out of that smashed up car with almost no injury.

We regrouped, as Mom did a roll call and checked for concussions. Then we stood in the snow and cold next to our upside-down car, trying to assess our currently changed state. Still not yet to our destination, we were stuck where we were and not sure how we were going to get home.

Suddenly, nobody was thinking about Florida.

As I heard sirens in the distance, the gentleman who had accidently bumped into us offered to allow us children to warm up in his car. He was a nice man who had meant us no harm, and he seemed to feel just awful. The adults would now deal with the logistics and we would all be alright. As we walked away, I looked back at our car one last time, and one of the rear tires was somehow still spinning.