THE 250-YEAR ROAD TRIP – Part 1

Bye. Well, hello friends, this is Dick Foth with Stories from the Road. And we're in the middle of June, coming up on July 4th here pretty soon. And I wanted to do a couple of podcasts speaking to our 250th birthday as the United States of America. So happy birthday to us. And I want to talk about the quintessential American. I don't know if it's just an American thing. I'm sure it's not. But that thing called a road trip, because when we we speak about life as a journey, which is true, that's true about life in general. But a road trip is a very specific expression of that journey. And I've asked somebody to join me today. And I love doing this. Ruth and I will have been married 63 years later in July. So we're old and we have four children, all of whom are married and have adult children themselves. And the eldest is Erica and then Jenny and then Susanna and Chris. And Susanna, our third daughter, lives in Idaho and is a writer. And so we're going to talk about a particular book as we get into this. But Susanna, it's lovely to see you. This is fun. Thanks for having me. And you live where in Idaho? I live in Meridian, Idaho, which is in the Treasure Valley. It's about 15 minutes outside of Boise. OK. And you're a writer, as I've already mentioned. And when did you know that you like to write? Yeah. Oh, I think from the time I was little. So I remember our first grade teacher at Yankee Ridge had us do stories. And we would write stories and we would have little bound books. And I think that was my first time that I experienced, like, this is super fun. Yeah. And you said Yankee Ridge, and that was in Urbana, Illinois, where you were born and where we were born. A dozen years. The thing that's fascinating to me about your journey of writing, because you've been published a number of times, your first book was called, what was that? All I need is Jesus and a good pair of jeans. And that was Revell or Baker or one of those companies. I like the second one because I got to help with that title. You know, my bangs look good in other lies. I tell myself. I'm struggling with my bangs even today. So we're having a moment here. I struggle with mine as well. No, that's a lie, folks. I'm bald as a billiard ball here. But. You, in recent years, have been associated with a group called I Like Giving, and you help with writing things. Talk to, just give us a snapshot of what I Like Giving is about. I Like Giving is a generosity nonprofit. And I started out blogging with them, doing fun, uplifting blogs about generosity. Their core values are about loving God, loving others, and helping them live generously. And so it's just a different way that you look at living. And so they have seven different ways of living generously. Generous thoughts, generous words, generous money, generous time. generous influence, generous attention, and generous belongings. So a lot of times generosity is just focused on money. Yeah. And, um, with, I like giving there, it just shows there are so many ways that we can be generous with the way that we live. And so the most fun that I think I've ever had is, uh, writing with them and their, their generous family division. We've written, it will be at the end of this year, 36 kids books. And you've written books with what I think are creative titles. They're sort of Dr. Seuss-ish, if I can add the high compliment. I really like Jasper G. This is a giraffe. Jasper G. and the Me Thinking Madness. Or you've got Ellie the elephant with a stinking thinking or, or what's this one? This is Marco, the monkey and the marvelous money. And you, so you have these little books and this is part of a curriculum for kids from age. What, what grades, Well, I think that we would say it was probably from ages like two to eight for the picture books. But actually we've had kids that are 13 and 14. That's my greeting of everybody loves to rhyme. So it's really, it's been such a fun opportunity. So recently, to commemorate the 250 years of the United States, you led or were part of a team, a writing team, that wrote a book called America's Grateful Stateful Road Trip. America's Grateful Stateful Road Trip. And it's written under a nom de plume, you know, a pen name written by, I love this, Betta To Give. and illustrated by Seymour Good. I love that. It starts out this way. I'm just going to read the first few pages, and then we'll go from there. And it starts out with this. Happy 250th birthday, America. We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. So that's the preamble to the Constitution. Wow. Yes, those are not my words, just to be clear. That didn't sound like Dr. Seuss. You're right. That's not that. This is a story that is an animated story, primarily with a giraffe family, if I can. And this is how it reads. I'm just going to go for it, Sue, OK? Here we go. In the great 50 states where fun freedom rings out, there lived two giraffe cousins just lolling about. It's our summer vacation. Now what should we do? Jenny G, I am bored. Jasper G, I am too. Did they say this is the grandparents? Did they say they're bored? Granny G, that can't be. Well, I have just the thing. Listen up and you'll see, Grandma says. It's America's birthday. 250 yippee. Here's a fun way to join in the joy jamboree. Sketch a poster about the most beautiful state. List the reasons you're grateful for what makes it great. I'm not sure that I know every state, Jen. Do you? Just the state that we're in, Jasper. What should we do? The rest of the book takes them on a road trip from the northeast to the southeast to the... Midwest to the Southwest to the West, and then back to Washington, D.C. And you'll be able to, if you want, you can go online and go to the link that will be in the notes attached to this podcast. And you can see it in animation, which is better than just hearing it. You and I and our family, mom and the other kids and so forth, when you were young, we took numbers of road trips together. Yeah. So talk to me when I say road trip. What are the thing or things that come to mind? And we'll have another podcast to elaborate on this, but just right out of the chutes, what? I think the first thing that comes to mind is just excitement because most of our road trips were from Illinois to California to see cousins and grandparents. So I just remember you loading us up. We had a station wagon and there would be sleeping bags in the back of the station wagon. And, um, late at night after church, uh, Is that correct? After the church service on Sunday? Yeah, because we used to do that back in the 1970s. The 1900s. By the way, for the older folks listening to this, the station wagon was, at least for a couple of the times, was a Plymouth Fury, which was a huge boat of a... of a station wagon. And as you might expect, he got 10 miles to the gallon. Go ahead, go ahead. Yeah, so we would, I remember certain times, all four of us kids in the back, laying down, and we would drive through the night. And I think wake up, I think you said in Texas, is that right? That's right, we drive from Urbana, Illinois, to Shamrock, Texas, which is about an hour this side of Amarillo. Yeah, we loved it. Whatever hotel, it wasn't a hotel, motel probably that you picked. It was a pool with a slide. That's all. I mean, like, that was just like we had died and gone to heaven, you know. So I also remember waking up from naps. I don't know, a lot of sleeping memories stuck to the bed. pleather vinyl seats also, because the air conditioning was not great, like in the back. I remember that just being very hot on those trips. That's right. But I think we loved it. Like all of us kids loved it. It just felt like an adventure that we were going on. When you think about it, your mother put together little packets for you know you've got no videos you've got well you don't have any restraints hardly you have no seat belts i i think i still have shoulder issues from reaching back over the seat trying to swat you guys because you know he's breathing on me you know stuff like that you're you're dancing he was breathing on me yeah 100 we're we're lucky we just survived that I have a great memory. I know we're going to elaborate on the next one, but I have to share it because it just popped in. I can't remember which trip this was, Dad, but we were so hot in the car and we were driving and you spotted, we were driving alongside a river and you spotted that they had like canoes for rent. Do you remember that? No, tell me. Yeah, and you were like, I think we should go. And this is, I have to let everyone know that Dad doesn't stop. On road trips, like even if you have to go to the bathroom, if you pass that gas station, you're not there's no turning around. Like once you are headed in the trajectory of the road trip, we're going. And so, yeah, Dad, you pulled over and we got to go canoeing down the river. Just for like an hour or two in the middle of the road trip. And that was awesome. I was a much better dad than I remember. That's great. Good job, Dad. You know what's interesting is that kids oftentimes will remember the spontaneous moments. the things that happen because, well, let's just do it. That they will remember that almost more than anything else, which is, I don't think I've ever heard you say this and you've been around a few decades now. It was, hey, what's up? Why are we talking about that? Let's just keep on track. Like we're talking about what trips here. So, Well, I'm going to wrap this up here. But one of my friends... Barry Corey, who happens now to be president by the University in Southern California. He was brought up all of his years pretty much in Boston. He's a Bostonian. He's a Yankee, if you will. And when he got the invitation about 18 years ago, 19 years ago to go to Southern California, it's hard to go farther than Boston to L.A. I mean, it's, you know. diagonally across the United States. His wife and smaller children flew out to California, but he took his boy, Anders. I think Anders was maybe 14, something like that. And they decided they'd do a road trip. And the road trip had two pieces to it. One is they would try every day, if they could, to go to a baseball game. Could be major league, minor league. They came to see us on the second or third night. We lived in DC and we went to see the Nationals play the Brewers, and I remember that. But but they also saw I think it was the Albuquerque isotopes. You know, these are minor league teams and and they would stop different places. So that that was one guideline that they would go to baseball game. The second guideline was that they would not eat in any chain restaurants. It would always be local hole in the wall, all of that kind of stuff. There's something there about discovery on a road trip, the spontaneity of it, the discovery of it. Life is that. Life is one huge road trip with all of its attendant challenges, frustrations, other kinds of things. What's interesting to me is when I look at Scripture, there's a sense in which the arc of the story has to do with road trips. The big pieces, whether it's Abraham leaving Ur of the Chaldees and going over to what we now know as Palestine, Israel. or whether it's Moses leading the captives out of Egypt, 400 years in slavery. That's a road trip. It would have been better if he had listened and, you know, if there hadn't been disobedience, which stretched it out. But the idea of I am somebody going from someplace to somewhere else, is the consummate human experience in a lot of ways. It isn't the only one, but it's a big one. And when we think of the United States, we're thinking about, you know, I know there's a lot of kerfuffle about immigration and all of that now, but we are in fact a country of immigrants. You have the indigenous people, Native Americans who were here when we got here, but they came here from somewhere, I think. And so we're here and it's that generation. Whenever I see Ellis Island and all of that, I think of my grandmother coming on this huge road trip from Russia here in 1900. And maybe I'll mention that in the next podcast. But this idea that biblically, The idea of journey and road trip is at its heart really resonates with me. To what degree do you think that I see that correctly or in any way close to what you think about how life works? I mean, road tripping and life in general? Yep. I think that... It's fun. That's the adventure part is the fun part. So not knowing what's coming next or what's around the next corner, what's around the next off-round. I think that that part, discovering new places, meeting new people, we were surprised with goodness in that. So I think that as far as thinking of life as a road trip, those are the parts that I would enjoy about that. I totally agree with that. I've said this on this program before, but years ago when we first went to D.C., I was in my early 50s. And... I was walking across Capitol Hill trying to say, how do you how do you talk about the good news of Jesus on Capitol Hill? Well, they don't use necessarily words like blessing and salvation, some sort of theological word. They don't use that. And I felt like this idea of place came to mind where Jesus would say to me essentially this both. Here's the deal. I'll leave my place. I'll come to your place. I'll take your place. Then we'll go to my place. To me, that circuit, that circuit of him, him coming to our place to take us someplace, the ultimate road trip, if you will. And I don't mean for that to sound cheesy. I just mean for that to sound true, because I believe it is. Well, that's all we're going to do today. And it's Susanna. Thank you for doing this with me. We're going to turn around and do it again in just a moment. OK, sounds good. All of you who have listened to this, thanks a million. Think about your own road trip. Go to I Like Giving. Would it be ilikegiving.com they could go to? Yeah. ilikegiving.com. And you can see the animated version of America's grateful, stateful road trip. That's it. We're out. Let's go get a root beer and have a hot dog soon. Sounds good. Bye-bye. you