Horn & Hardart Automat
On family vacations
we drove south.
Not back-to-the-land for us
— camping, parks, uplifting vistas
tents, bugs, rained-out picnics —
but the United States of America
where everything was bigger
existence
a little more sweet.
Land of exotic candy bars
more glamorous cars.
And neon pink motels,
where big colour TVs
with way more stations
were double-chained to the floor.
Road trips
are the stress test
of family life.
Like high tensile steel
bent to the breaking point,
a test-flight jet
pulling G’s.
Who gets stuck
in the middle seat.
Unscheduled pit-stops, roadside
and a dad who loves making time,
counting down on the wheel
hard.
We drove enclosed
in a glass-and-steel hotbox
that concentrated sun,
magnifying turf wars
perceived injustice.
We visited the big Eastern cities,
Exposing impressionable young minds
to metropolitan life.
The Statue of Liberty
in its cold inner harbour.
Patriotic history
ye olde tea party.
Great cauldrons of molten steel,
that would be poured red hot
into Ford Falcons, and Fairlanes.
Although I don’t remember much.
Radio City Music Hall
and leggy Rockettes.
Shea Stadium, the heartbreaking Mets,
where my thoughts kept returning
to the steeply raked edge
of the nose-bleed section —
as if you could reach for a red hot
and simply slip off,
smooth as mustard.
And most of all
the Horn & Hardart Automat.
A coin-operated wall
of small glass boxes
stocked cafeteria-style.
A cornucopia
of comforting stuff,
like shepherd’s pie
and rice pudding.
Efficiency, temptation, abundance
all at once.
Frost-bitten bumpkins, like us
could only imagine
such an up-to-date eatery.
Naturally, Dad did all the driving.
Mom rode shotgun,
gave directions, a second too late
was good at taking blame.
We knew our place,
in the backseat
where kids were meant to be seen
not heard.
Conducting covert territorial wars
with feet and elbows,
no seatbelts
to mark our borders.
We were foreigners
in a parallel universe
where everything was slightly off.
Who could pass
as pretty much normal,
maybe Minnesota, or N. Dakota
— they talk funny, up there.
They would take Canadian quarters
never noticed.
But held dollar bills up to the light
squinting one eye,
like we were trying to pull something.
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