HISTORICAL COMMENTS BY GEORGE CHEVALLIER 5-16-15

Car Games

Back in the days when families took family vacations in their cars, things were a lot different from what they are now. Travel was much slower because there were no super highways, and most of the roads required speeds, either mandated by law or dictated by conditions, which were far below the 70 mph+ that are attained today on the Interstate Highways. Also, there were no seat belts, and the children in the back seat usually spent most of their time hanging off the back of the front seat. This was a serious impediment to the concentration of my father who was trying to drive.

We used to play a game called “counting cows”. Since there were two of us, my sister and I, in the back seat, this made for the perfect arrangement for playing the game. She got all the cows that were in a pasture on her side, and I got all the cows on my side. The problem for anyone playing came about when you passed a graveyard. When you passed a graveyard, you lost all your cows, certainly a far cry from the modern electronic devices used to entertain the children of today. Vehicles of today have VCR’s in them and the children can watch their favorite movies. Or they can play any number of hand-held games-just as entertaining, but not quite as good for the formation of social interaction as the games of old.

Another thing we did was count Fords. Since my father was a Ford man, he was the final judge when we would spot one. Of course, as children, we had to point out with our fingers every one that we spotted. The little hands flying in front of his face sometimes caused him to halt the game as we became more animated. There were many variations to counting Fords. We would go by car colors or different makes sometimes. It was possible to identify the different makes in those days because they all didn’t look alike as they do now. A lot of cars now are only identifiable if you know the symbol of the car manufacturer, and not many of us know them all. Many of us can remember when the Labor Day weekend was the time when car manufacturers broke out their “new line” for the coming year. It was a much anticipated occasion for the men of the world. Women didn’t have much to do with cars in those days.

Spotting license plates from all over the country was usually a community effort by everyone in the car. We always thought that a car from theMidwest had come a very long way. To us, someone who had come from Wisconsin or one of the Dakotas was always met with comments that they had really traveled a long way. Now, people just hop on a plane and travel half way across the country in just a few hours.

The car games we played helped pass the time and also allowed us to see a lot of new geography. Coming from the flat Eastern Shore, we always marveled at the mountains as we were going throughPennsylvania. There was even a restaurant in Pennsylvaniathat seemed to be on the precipice of a very steep drop. We stood in amazement at the sheer height. Of course, it didn’t take as much to amaze us in those days. Times change.