VACATION FOR A BIRTHDAY PRESENT(Charles E.J. Moulton) July 17, 1936, Headline, Glen Ellyn News:
VACATION FOR A BIRTHDAY PRESENT

We hadn’t planned on going so far afield but since my grandparents had left us their Ford V-8 Sedan (so much more comfortable than Henrietta, our 1927 Studebaker), why not take advantage of it? Our goal, a last-minute choice: Niagara Falls. So scenic, so educational, and so many lovely sights for Little Herbert to see on the way. What I saw was next to nothing. The whole expedition was planned for me and where did I spend it? Scrounched up on the floor of the back seat munching candy bars and having a glorious hog-wallow, reading comic books, movie magazines, Big Little Books, and Popular Mechanics. Whose birthday was it, anyway? All I wanted was some peace and quiet ...

Peace and quiet, did someone say? My dear mother Nell was of a different mind. We were driving a long way all the way from Glen Ellyn, Illinois, it was costing a helluva lot for gas and oil alone, and we’d just better enjoy every single minute of Middle-America passing by ...
“Now, is that clear, young man? Or else! Get up from there this instant, did you hear what I said? Little Herbert, you’re missing everything. Just look at this lovely town, the rolling countryside, all those lovely cows!”
This kept up in every state we sped through, including Ontario:
“Little Herbert, we’re in a different country all together now: Canada! Get up now and look around you. They don’t have a president as we do. They have a king.”
“Maybe not for long,” my dad, Big Herb, chimed in, otherwise intent on his driving.
“Oh, ish!” scoffed Nell. “A perfectly lovely man. Your cousin Virginia Gamon danced with him once. They had to put together a whole pitcher of Scotch at his place every meal. That’s when your Uncle Arthur was ambassador ...”
“General Consul,” said Big Herb. “Or Consul General, Mexico someplace.”
Nell bridled at this:
“That’s right, make a liar out of me, as usual. I stand corrected.”
“Oh, Nell, please.”
“Just pay attention to your driving, Mister. Oh, Little Herbert, look at that lake or sea or whatever it is. I always forget which. Erie? Ontario? Well, it can’t be Michigan. That’s back home in Chicago.”
Big Herb chuckled. “Try Lake Huron, Nell. It’s the only one of the two left.”
Nell gave him a look and then shook her head. This wasn’t going as well as she’d hoped. It very seldom did.
I did graciously consent to put away my reading for the sake of the Falls. They were, after all, quite worth seeing. Especially at night when lit up with colored lights. We took a little steamboat, Maid of the Mist, which went up as close as it could to the thundering waters (of which the composer Gustav Mahler once exclaimed: “Endlich fortissimo!” – “At last something loud!”
But what I really saved to tell my pals back home was the rescue operation downstream at the treacherous whirlpool. A man had recently drowned. His corpse was whirling madly around – he had a white shirt on – and they were trying to fish him out by means of long pools, but each time, the vortex almost got them, as well. Vortex! Edgar Allan Poe! But we had to get going.
My Dad had to get back to work, and Grand-Dad would want his car back.
“When you’re as poor as we are,” said Nell in her best Irish-Martyr-Voice, “you can’t always do what you like.”
“Oh, nuts,” was Big Herb’s comment. He was used to this.

The trip back home was more of the same.
“Get up off that floor, now. I’m not telling you again! Look at where we are on the map, Little Herbert! East Liverpool, Ohio, fancy that! Wouldn’t you like to have a new pennant for your bedroom wall with that on it? We must stop and get some things for your knick-knack shelf, oh, and some post cards. Are you looking, Little Herb? This is Pughstown, dear God in heaven! Imagine living in a town called Pughstown! Mother of Mercy! Wouldn’t you ashamed? HERBERT, I’m telling you for the very last time!”
“Well, please don’t shout,” said my Dad.
“Who the hell is shouting?” shouted Nell. “We go to all this trouble and expense to take this boy on a nice trip and what does he do? Spends the whole time on the damned back floor! Never heard of such a thing! Why can’t YOU say something to him, reprimand the boy?”
“Please, Nell, we’ll have an accident!”
“If you ask me, LIFE is an accident.”
“Nuts.”
“Stop the car, do you hear me? Stop it at once! I want to get out!”
“What? Here? In Pughstown? You’re even crazier than usual.”
“Well, thank you very much! Stop the car, I said!”
In other words, a typical Moulton Family Excursion, and, like our life itself, one part Irish temperament, one part Yankee cussedness, and one part pre-pubescent bloody-mindedness, a volatile mixture that always spelled out High Dramatics. A regular Brouhaha, but not a word of it to be taken seriously.

This spirited exchange was followed by a long aggrieved silence. Then gradually the mellowing began, and before long, euphoria reigned once more.
“Oh, thanks be God,” murmured Nell. “The Illinois border. Big Herb, you’ve done a beautiful job, as usual. And you, Little Herb, won’t you have a lot to tell your chums about? I can’t wait to phone Bess. Is there anything to drink at home?”
And, as always, the next day found her writing about Glen Ellyn News.

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