Road trips with Pie Man
Dad was my travel hero. A master of Boston streets, Rochester neighborhoods and New Hampshire backroads, he was a personal GPS before GPS was a thing. The trunk of his car was full of road maps and large AAA Atlas books. I was only 10 when I started to recognize my dad’s nose for navigation. To me he was a man among men who, behind the wheel of the car, could command just about anything.
A traveling salesman selling ball bearings, fan belts and switches to factories, machinists and makers of all kinds of moveable motors, dad’s territory included all of New England and upstate New York. Before embarking on an upcoming trip, dad would pull out the appropriate map from his trunk and pour over the blue veins and red arteries scattered across the thick black outlines of his chosen state. He’d flip from page to page as the road would end at one border and begin again at the next. He captured the route in his head and then put the map near his side in the front of the car.
Sometimes he’d bring the maps in the house and show me and my younger brother Arnie where he was headed. “Andrea, you and your brother go take this atlas and look up Massachusetts, follow your finger along the road that leads to New York State and then look for Albany.”
Arnie and I would take the huge book into the den and once we found Albany, we’d look at all the other states and find the silliest names for cities and towns — Hazardville, CT, Belchertown, MA and Bath, ME. Then we’d look up the roads from Framingham, Massachusetts to Bridgeport, Connecticut, a frequent route to visit our grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins who settled there between the 1920’s and 1930’s. To get there from where we lived, there were a dozen interchanges not to mention numerous rights and lefts and stop signs on city streets once we made it to Bridgeport.
By the 1930’s, Bridgeport had become a manufacturing center with more than 500 factories offering jobs for the waves of immigrants arriving to the U.S. My mother was born in Frankfurt, Germany and just twelve years old when she fled the Nazi’s with her mom and dad, my Nanny and her husband (who died before I was born). In 1939 they had to abandon their home, their livelihood and the rest of their family to survive. After crossing the Atlantic and arriving at Ellis Island, it was clear they would be starting over. With few jobs in New York, they were advised to head to Bridgeport where there would be more options. So north they went, by train which was the lifeline for multitudes of immigrants who found work in what became Connecticut’s most populous city. Among Bridgeport’s many factories was one that made slippers where my Nanny found work, even though she didn’t know how to use a sewing machine. It was my grandfather who encouraged her with the simplest of instructions, “push the pedal down and it goes. Take your foot off and it stops.”
My father’s family came from Romania in an earlier migration fleeing the pogroms, violent riots aimed at the massacre or expulsion of Jews. My paternal grandfather Harry arrived in Brooklyn when he was just four years old. As a young man, he landed a job in Bridgeport as a “field representative” for McKesson, the third largest drug maker and distributor in the country. McKesson’s CEO, sold more than just drugs however. He also sold alcohol, mostly to folks linked with organized crime. His schemes fell apart in 1938 and Grandpa Harry scooted away from prosecution. After that, he and my grandmother started their own pharmaceutical distributor company called Good Products and Harry got back on the road, selling up and down the east coast while Grandma managed the books.
When it was time to head to Bridgeport for a visit with our grandparents, my brother and I would jump into the car. That’s because dad always made the two-and-a-half-hour trip more like an adventure. We sat in the back seat of our station wagon with dad driving and mom beside him in the front holding the bag of snacks and games she prepared for the journey. Dad played tour guide. “Hartford coming up ahead”, he’d say. My brother and I leaned into the center of the back seat to look through the windshield and there it was, the city skyline with its oddly shaped skyscrapers. “That one looks like the mirrored trash can in mom and dad’s bedroom,” I exclaimed. “Yeah”, Arnie would follow. And then he’d point to the curvy cupola of another tower. “And that one looks like an onion! We could throw the onion into the trash can.” And we’d collapse on top of each other giggling out loud. Soon we’d be merging onto the Berlin Turnpike. For its first 20 years, until Interstate 91 opened to the east, the Berlin Turnpike was the primary route between Hartford and New Haven, and still sports some of the diners and hotels from that era. As many as 32 gas stations serviced travelers on the route in its heyday, giving the Turnpike its nickname “Gasoline Alley”.
“See that sign over there?”, dad would point out. “That’s Grandma’s Pie Shop. They make the best pie between here and Bridgeport.” Dad’s customers called him “The Pie Man” because he often brought a pie to their shop when he called on them. “In sales, you gotta be memorable,” he’d explain. “Especially with the office staff, so they’ll get me an appointment with their buyer next time.” Dad was a strategist at heart. Always thinking ahead, marketing himself and becoming one of the most beloved salesmen in his territory. His little proverbs and sayings would stay with us forever. “Never get angry with a customer. Just get back in your car, roll up the window and yell like hell.” He woke up every day with a smile — salesmen I learned, are eternal optimists. Tomorrow is another day, full of hope for that elusive deal. He often brought us one those famous pies for dessert after one of his road trips, making him our Pie Man at home too.
Next up were the West Rock tunnels on the Wilbur Cross Parkway in Woodridge. As we approached them, our hearts raced. They were the first tunnels my brother and I had ever gone through — even before the Callahan Tunnel to Logan Airport. Mysterious and amazing all at once, we would be driving right through a mountain! You could see the twin tubes ahead trimmed by arches of perfectly cut stone blocks. The lights inside beckoned our car like a call from outer space. “Here comes the tunnel,” dad would signal. And then we’d be inside, under the mountain, with the headlights turned on. In those days, there was no such thing as running lights. The tunnel was an adventure in the dark in the middle of the day. The car would emerge out the other side and ahead of us was a huge downhill. You could see for miles. We’d look behind us to catch a glimpse of the twin tunnels from the other side, looking up at them as we descended the parkway to our next landmark, Sikorsky aircraft.
With giant helicopters marking their place in the landscape, the view was our sign that we were getting close to grandma and grandpa’s house.
When the landmarks were far between, Arnie and I would compete over finding all the out-of-state license plates up ahead. Being far-sighted, I almost always won. During quiet moments on the ride, he and I would make up silly games like placing our fingers to walk them toward one another like stick figures passing on a sidewalk of vinyl stripes. We’d sing made up songs while our fingertips jostled for room when we got closer to each other.
And at times we bickered like all kids in the backseat. Mostly though we just annoyed each other. My little brother would stare at me. I’d catch him looking at me out of the corner my eye and tell him “Quit it.”. But he’d keep staring, and smirking until I couldn’t take it anymore and I’d whine to my parents, “Arnie’s staring at me”. “Stop bothering your sister,” dad would say. And most times, that would be the end of it. Until one of us would ever so slightly tap the other one on their leg until the annoyance ended with, “Dad, Andrea keeps touching me.” And the refrain would begin again. But mom would step in to break up the cycle with a surprise game pulled from the bag of tricks she had packed before we left the house. MadLibs and pencils would get tossed into the back seat and my brother and I would be immediately distracted.
As we got older, Dad would give us the road maps and we’d follow along as we passed landmarks — exit numbers, historic sites, bridges and toll booths — illustrating for me once again that real men (or smart women for that matter) don’t ask for directions, they read maps.
We always anticipated our visits to our grandparents for whatever treasures we might find. “Do you think we can get Nanny to take us to Korvette’s to pick out a new toy?,” I’d quietly ask my brother. “Will grandma let us play with the sword dad brought back from WWII?”. Nanny had a more modern sensibility than Grandma. By the early 70’s, she drove a Pontiac Firebird with a cream-colored vinyl roof and matching bucket seats. Grandma had a 1961 black Dodge Dart until the day she died in 1975. Nanny always had her hair done and wore makeup. Grandma kept her hair in a bun and wore dark skirts and “sensible” shoes. They showed us how much they loved us in such different but most welcome ways. Nanny pushing us to eat, Grandma limiting television so we would read or play board games. But their hugs and squeezes were equally soft and mushy.
Our return ride home had its own rituals. We would leave Bridgeport around dinner time and stop for Kuhn’s hot dogs at the Merritt Canteen. Dad let us take a bite of his with the works. Onions and sauerkraut, mustard and relish and that “snap” of the hot dog between your teeth and the soft bun wrapped all around the tangy mess. Yum. Even at 10 years old, I loved it.
After our sloppy meal we would hop on the highway, the car smelling tangy from the mustard and hot dogs. As darkness fell, we played the “cadoodle” game mom had taught us, looking for cars heading toward us with one headlight missing. Eventually my brother and I would get drowsy and nod off. Once home, dad would wake us up with a satisfied smile suggesting another successful trip with the whole family — no missed exits, smoothly navigated ‘bumps in the road’ with us kids, and beds waiting for us inside our modest 50s ranch.
I’ve driven back to Bridgeport many times over the years. As manufacturing moved overseas, the city fell on hard times and was the first in the U.S. to file for bankruptcy in 1991. The Merritt Parkway and links to I95 became the main route as the Berlin Turnpike with its space-like tunnels and Grandma’s Pie shop gave way to faster highways. But even so, I still recall the silly songs and games my brother and I played in the backseat of Dad’s station wagon. And each morning, I wake up with the smile of an optimist at the promise of another day of discovery.
