Wrinkly Bits
A Blog by Gail Cushman
Originally posted 9/16/25
When I was a child, one of the best things we did as a family was to go on our Sunday afternoon Road Trips. First, we went to church, had a treat, then we headed home. My mom threw together some sandwiches, peanut butter for my younger brother and ham for the rest of us. My dad would say, “Don’t change out of your good clothes because we are going on a ride.” We gobbled the sandwiches and threw ourselves in the car.
“Where are we going today?” one of my brothers would ask. “Do we have to?”
“Out in the country. God made a beautiful valley, and it’s a beautiful day and we’re gonna give it all a look.” We lived in Emmett, Idaho, a small town of about 3,000 near Boise. It lay in a valley dotted with farms and orchards throughout.
“We did that last week” I whined. “It’s no different this week.” My brothers and I jammed ourselves into the back seat of our 1956 blue Studebaker President; Dad drove and Mom joined him in the front. I was ten years old and my brothers, who sandwiched me in the back seat, were thirteen and seven. They had sharp elbows and synchronized their jabs which I fought off, but they outnumbered and outpowered me, meaning small bruises on my arms or midriff. My older brother sometimes took pity on me and reached across and smacked my younger brother. Sometimes my father commiserated with me and moved me to the front seat. That didn’t happen often, though because that would mean he gave in to the boys. All in all, it was a rather uncomfortable ride. Plus, I had to wear a dress, one of the many distinct disadvantages to being a girl in the 1950’s.
Our valley was a fruit-producing area, and orchards lay throughout. Cherries. Peaches. Apples. Plums. Apricots, the whole array of yummy fruits. Strawberries, too. We took these trips often, so we saw the life cycle of the fruits, buds and smudge pots in the spring, blossoms, and finally the fruit hanging from the trees. Migrants, mostly from Mexico, came to pick the fruit, and we watched them moving the picking ladders from place to place. A lot of acres. A lot of trees, and a lot of ladders. I never picked tree fruit, although my older brother did. A good summer job, paid by the pound. I picked strawberries one summer, but that was a mistake for both the strawberry patch owners and me. I didn’t get fired, but should have been, those strawberries were might tasty when I was twelve.
Our trips last an hour or more, depending on what crops were in season. Fruit was number one in our community, but corn, oats, wheat, and barley ran second. Cows ran third, and we saw a lot of cows. I learned to tell the difference among the grain crops and could differentiate milk cows (Jersey, Holstein, and Guernsey cows), from the beef cows, (Herefords and Angus). I loved the white-faced Herefords; they were so pretty.
We usually stopped to visit somebody we knew, maybe somebody from church or one of the farmers that my dad his served with his AI business, just to say hello. It was, after all, Sunday. We often stopped at a dairy farmer, probably the Hankins, because we could buy raw milk, topped with real cream, from them. The real cream translated into home-made ice cream later in the week.
On the way home, we stopped for ice cream, often at the local store, Callies Grocery or the Shamrock, unless my mother needed something from Albertsons lucking out with nickel ice cream cones from their ice cream counter. Butter brickle was my favorite.
Sunday Road Trips are a thing of the past, but they bring back memories of the way it used to be.
