Raven's Roads
Living an interesting life: the travels and musings
of motorcycling author Linda R. Moore

May 16, 2007

Thinking Out Loud: The back seat of cars

I don’t understand why cars, these days, have DVD players and things like that as a selling point. I don’t understand why, on long car journeys, we expect that all our kids will want to do is tune out and watch even more cartoons.

I can understand music. My first personal stereo (it wasn’t a Walkman, because Walkmans were brands and therefore twice-the-price) was a tool that allowed me to turn the 1000+ mile drives to Slovenia, or the hundreds of miles to Scotland and Cornwall, into a personal soundtrack to an ever-moving live TV screen called “the car window.” But I didn’t get one of those until I was 16 or so. Before that, we just had the radio, tuning in to fizzy-sounding stations from across Europe, places that just from the crackles and tone sounded like they were miles away.

When I was a kid, it never occurred to my parents to somehow hook up a TV into the car. Every vacation would come with its associated, much-anticipated treat–a choice of new books to read en route, if I wanted. I could also simply sleep…or sing. Or play I-Spy and any of the dozens of car games that were around then and, for all I know, are still around now.

There were the I-Spy books, too. Last I checked, those are still being published. Covering dozens of different topics, they gave things to watch out for and you could tick them off and score points and even get a little certificate if you got enough points. All of these things helped to hone the powers of observation of a young, growing dreamer and to make boredom on a road trip a rarity. I learned to love the luxury of being driven along, watching the world go by…of not having to do anything, if I didn’t want to.

It seems to me that all of these things, these opportunities to learn, are obliterated by in-car entertainment systems.

The other day Don and I spotted a car from Massachusetts: “A long way from home,” I observed, with a little rooted-in-childhood thrill. And I was reminded, again, of other games that we’d play. On the way to Slovenia, we’d look out for the little oval stickers that denoted which country a car was from; in one of the road atlases there was a list and we’d use it like a Bingo scorecard (we never did see one from Albania). Playing as a family, the hours would go by in a flash. The further from Dover we went, the fewer Brits we’d see, so that when we saw one there would be waving and grinning. In Slovenia itself, we’d note which region of Slovenia the cars were from; GO was for Gorica, our neck of the woods; MB was a big deal–Maribor, way down south, miles away. A point of discussion, like a Massachusetts driver over here in California.

And back in the UK, we’d create phrases from licence plate letters–ABC: A big cake. The sillier the better, but never rude. Or count the legs on pub signs (pub cricket). Or just list the names (Frog and Frigate, Slug and Lettuce, The Hobgoblin). Or we’d try to fill out an alphabet…back then, each year on the first of August a new registration letter would indicate that the latest batch of cars would be released. There were the very-old ones, where the letter was at the end; and the newer ones, where the letter was at the beginning. (They ran out of letters a few years ago, though, and do it differently now, alas.)

Was I ever bored? I don’t remember. The boredom, if any, is not what sticks in my mind. My parents might correct me, but I don’t remember whining, “Are we nearly there?” except perhaps to make a joke. Heck, even spotting signs with how-many-kilometers-to-Munich was a game. A bit like watching the map on the back of an airplane seat. (Even now, I prefer the map and some music to a movie.)

Have we really progressed past that? If so, I think it is sad. These games allowed the experience of travel to be encapsulated; they helped to forge my love and travel. And you all know what that means, of course. My love of travel is probably one of the reasons that you read this blog. ;-)