JUNE 2017 / SOUTHERNLIVING.COM
146S
HE DOES NOT BURN UP the
roads anymore. We took a trip
the other day—she, my mother,
and I—and made it all the
way to the Coosa backwater.
Nothing was as we remem-
bered. The old roads were
overgrown or covered in four lanes,
and we got lost going to places we did
not even know we were going to. Still,
it was a fine trip. We got an Icee and
stayed out after dark. But once, long
ago, you should have seen her go.Because of her, I know what the
squish of river mud feels like between
my toes. Without her, I never would
have walked through Little Jerusalem. I
never would have seen Rome...Georgia. I
never would have seen the blast furnaces
set the sky ablaze over Birmingham, or
had a Big Mac in the back seat just the
other side of Montgomery. Oh, I would
have seen it all, eventually, but it needed
to happen to a boy; the world loses
much of its wonder about the time you
pay your first water bill.I don’t think I ever thanked my Aunt
Juanita, for taking me along.
The first big trip was usually around
the first of June, when hateful school
came to a close. You watched the clock
that last day, but even the hot air seemed
stuck in place, composed mostly of
chalk dust and floor wax, thick and still.
Finally, after a math class so long it defied
any numerical configuration, the last bell
of the school year sent a stampede of
cowlicks and brogans out into a brand-
new summer, clean, fresh, and free.
And there, behind the wheel of a beige
Chevrolet Biscayne, clutch pushed down,
patting the gas, was my Aunt Juanita.
With my mother riding shotgun, she
would show us as much of the world
as two tanks of regular would allow.
I can still see her that way, in dime-
store flip-flops and something called
pedal pushers, one bony elbow out the
open window. I do not recall a map.
“Don’t no moss grow on that woman,”
the old men liked to say, and now that I
am old and sophisticated, I know there
is a word for the way she was. My Aunt
Juanita was born with a case of wander-
lust, a need to feel the blacktop whirring
beneath those recapped tires.
We rode and rode, wedged in there
with inner tubes and lapdogs and softly
snoring grandmas, and dined on Grapico
sodas and Golden Flake Cheese Curls
and melting black walnut ice cream. On
long trips, like the 300-mile exodus to
the Gulf, we devoured fried chicken and
cold biscuits from aluminum foil, four
doors flung open under Spanish moss.
On short trips, we stopped for tomato
sandwiches and cans of Vienna sausages.
We thought that was as good as life
might ever be. It might have been.
She is 83 now. She wants to go up
near Summerville, Georgia, soon to visit
the graves of some kin. On the way,
maybe I can get her a Grapico, and tell
her what it all meant to me. ÂAlong for the Ride
Sometimes you’ve got to hop in a Chevy and get
the heck out of Dodge
by
RICK BRAGG
ILLUSTRATION BY JOHN CUNEO