Seated on the center cushion of my dad’s '76 Ford pickup, affectionately dubbed "Big Orange" for its conspicuous hue of orange paint, I found myself sandwiched between my father and Grandpa Joe. Our destination? Eastward, on a fishing expedition along the banks of the Big Muddy. Most summers, I look back to that surprisingly vivid memory.
Perhaps unforgettable because of the scorching heat that summer or maybe it was the absence of air conditioning that etched it all so deeply. Among the memories was our roadside picnic. Ahead of our departure, my mom had fried chicken for us boys.
It was a familiar event for my family to picnic on longer road trips. Something that I didn’t think much about at the time, but often think about nowadays. Such a simple pleasure, and I’m just not sure how common it was or if we did it to stay within a budget.
Reflecting on it now, it strikes me that we should incorporate such honest roadside picnics into our lives more often— a charming tradition that I think is worth revisiting. The camping arrangements were "uptown" as my dad would say. An expression that he used for anything that was even modestly more stylish than the usual.
In this particular case, uptown accommodations meant a foam board laid in the bed of the pickup, sheltered by the truck's topper, to serve as our sleeping quarters. In all honesty, most of my camping trips were simply a bedroll laid over the shed needles of ponderosa pines — comfy but not uptown. So, this setup w.
