12 Legs Travel

There are some sentences a father never wants to hear his son utter. Among them:

“I wrecked the truck.”

“I’m in jail.”

“I backed over the dog.”

“I need a thousand dollars.”

“I kind of like ABBA.”

Another sentence you can add to that list: “I quit my job so I can travel across the country for a year.”

I’m 38 years old. I’ve been making unsound life choices for three decades. My father should be used to it by now. And you could argue that, at my age, I should be well past the point of worrying about his approval. But once a son, always a son.

A few words about my dad: He worked for the same company for more than 30 years before retiring. He and my mother put two kids through college. He has never taken a vacation he hasn’t saved for. He is a rock. A piedmont of prudence against a lapping sea of nonchalance. If the federal government were to mint a coin in my father’s honor, it would depict his stern face, in a ball cap and bifocals, beneath the motto “Responsibility, Practicality and Frugality.”

My father recycled before it was cool. From roughly 1974 to 1983, every time he finished a gallon of milk, he filled it with water and made me carry it to the garage, to be stockpiled in a deep freezer pockmarked by dents and rust. This is why, throughout a childhood of Tennessee summers, I can’t remember my family ever buying a bag of ice. If dad needed ice, he simply bashed a frozen milk jug with a hammer.

My father comes from a place where men solve problems with industriousness instead of credit cards, and they do so without taking smug pride in their MacGyver-like resourcefulness. Once, when I was maybe 12, my dad and I forgot to bring earplugs to the rifle range. Rather than wasting gas on a trip back home or spending $2 at the nearby tackle/gun shop, dad rummaged around the glove box until he found one of my mother’s emergency tampons. He broke its plastic shell, plucked out the cotton and stuffed it in my ears.

I know nothing of my father’s money matters or investments, because we Southerners tend not to talk about such things, even among family. But I’ll wager you a slightly used dog that neither the dot-com bust nor the burst real-estate bubble cracked his nest egg, and that somewhere a safety-deposit box in his name contains a few neatly folded government bonds.

So, yeah, this whole ditching-my-workaday-life-to-traipse-around-the-country thing has been a tough pill for dad to swallow. In fact, I’m not actually sure he can even get this metaphorical pill to his lips; he just stands there, looking at it in his open palm and muttering, “Why would anybody put this into their body?”

Yesterday, I opened my inbox to find this e-mail from my dad:

“The blog did nothing to increase my fervor for your journey. The car portion was depressing. Your dad makes lists of pros and cons. Have you done this??? It’s not too late to rethink. A year is a long time on the road. Steinbeck’s ‘Travels with Charley’ was after a lifetime of work. Would he agree with your plan? Write something encouraging on your blog. You are not easing your mom’s qualms.”

My reply:

“The car is fine. It just had a tune-up, and I know exactly what’s going on with the vibration. Our Honda mechanic said it’s common in CRVs. I was embellishing a little, taking some creative license. We’ll be fine. I’ve got that toolbox you put together for me 20 years ago; Jill’s got AAA. By the way, I’ve read a couple of Steinbeck biographies, and I’m certain he would endorse our plan. His father, however, would not. That’s how it goes I guess.”

—Scott