The Next Thirty-Three Miles

We had been on the road for almost an hour when we saw the first sign. Three of my mother’s ham biscuits and a big glass of milk had combined with the rhythmic bump of the car tires on highway expansion joints to send me into hibernation and I almost missed it. Fortunately, my brother was more alert and woke me up so I wouldn’t sleep through the event.

“Hey, you’re gonna miss it”, he barked, punching me in the shoulder.

“What?” I mumbled, groggily. “Miss what?”

“That”, he said, pointing out the window. I shifted and slid over a bit to look between my parent’s heads, to see what he was talking about.

It was still a good way off, but I immediately realized what it was. The bright colors on a black background, the pointed crown of a sombrero, the long red cylinder at the top; it was what we’d been waiting for. Excitement built as it came closer and closer, causing my brother and I to tremble in an anticipation.

Finally, we were there and sang out together in loud, elated voices: “You never sausage a place! You’re always a wiener at Pedro’s. SOUTH OF THE BORDER!!!” Even over our laughter, I could hear my father sigh deeply. He knew what was coming for next thirty-three miles.

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“Are they asleep?” the boy’s father asked his wife. She looked over her shoulder into the backseat.

“I think so”, she replied. “Jack is, for sure. If Tommy isn’t, he’s close to it.”

“Good. Maybe we’ll make it past that god-awful place before they wake up”, he said with a hope he really didn’t feel. Every year, he thought, they took their vacation at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. They took U.S. 421, picking up 501 just before Fayetteville and taking it all the way to their destination. And, every year, like clockwork, between Sanford and Pinehurst, the boys saw the first sign and went crazy, begging him to stop. He always dreaded it because the closer they got, the worse their begging became. More than once, he’d threatened to stop the car, leaving what might happen if he did hanging heavy in the air. It was, he realized, a tactic that was becoming less and less effective every year.

“Why don’t you stop, just once?” asked his wife. “After they see for themselves how tacky and sad the place is, they’ll quit asking.”

“Yeah, maybe. I’d hate to kill their dreams, though.”

She looked at him quizzically. “What?”

He smiled and said, “Right now, South of the Border is a magical place where anything can happen. Once they see it, up close and personal, that’s gone. It’ll be just another tourist trap on the way to the beach.”

She looked at him for a moment, this hard working, blue-collar man she thought she knew so well, and said, “When did you become so wise?”

He laughed. “Now, I’m wise?”

She gave him a playful swat on the arm, “Well, that statement was. But, where did it come from?”

“Experience, babe. Hard won experience.”

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“You know my Uncle John, down in Florida?” She nodded.

“Well, we drove down to visit once when I was a kid. On the way, we kept passing all these reptile farms. I’d never seen anything like that before and just knew they had to be filled with all sorts of wild and wonderful things. I begged my dad to stop, pleading harder and harder with each one we passed. He finally gave in and pulled into one outside a little town called Waldo. It was such a disappointment. A few frogs, a lizard or two and an alligator that I’m pretty sure was stuffed. I lost a little something that day. I kind of want to postpone that for our boys as long as possible.”

She smiled and started to say something, but stopped when she heard Tommy say to his younger brother, “Hey, wake up or you’ll miss it”. She looked at her husband and shrugged as if to say, “So much for sleeping through it”.

They heard Jack mumble “What? Miss what?”, his voice heavy with sleep.

“That”, the older boy said. They didn’t need to look back and see if he was pointing. They knew. And, at what, too. They could hear Jack slide across the seat; could feel the anticipation building in both boys as the sign got closer and closer. Still, they both jumped a little when their kids sang out in unison, “You never sausage a place! You’re always a wiener at Pedro’s. SOUTH OF THE BORDER!!!”

Their father sighed, resigned to what he knew was coming for the next thirty-three miles.