Ed's first road trip, June 1948

In June of 1948, my mother and father drove from our little village in southern West Virginia all the way to the coast of Oregon to visit my mother's uncle who had been in the Roosevelt Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and then, later, became a forester with the State of Oregon.  My father had just taken delivery of a new 1948 Ford Tudor from his father's Ford dealership.  Yours truly was placed in the back seat (long before child car seat days, of course).

I was less than six months old.  We arrived in the backwoods of the Oregon coast where my mother's uncle lived and worked and within a day or so my mother placed me (seemingly sans clothing) on a towel on a picnic table.  

Note in the photo how I seem to be doing my early "push-ups" and smiling a great big smile.  

A 2,000 mile trip in the back seat of a 1949 Ford and a photo taken on a picnic table in a forest in Oregon.  Only old photos bring us back to our early days.

Seventy years later, how does one look back to one's early days?  With awe, with reverence, with gratitude?  

This would have been my first long-distance road trip............the first of many.