"Daddy Is That Like Ethel Mertz?"

Daddy, Is That Like Ethel Mertz?

Traveling through the Deep South could be a hot and sweltering experience during the 1950’s. Most restaurants were considered “sheik” if they were able to produce an air cooling system any more high tech than a ceiling fan. That day the highway was shimmering with the rising heat, and the sun had climbed to a high afternoon blaze.

My dad was in high spirits, driving his new black Ford and transporting his young family to his next military assignment in south Texas. With his pretty wife and three small children venturing on a cross country journey together we must have seemed the epitome of the American dream. Norman Rockwell would have no doubt chosen to capture this family scene upon canvas to adorn the next cover of “The Saturday Evening Post”.

My mother and two baby brothers (one toddler and one newborn) were napping peacefully to the motion of the traveling car. We had been on the road for several hours as the temperature had gradually risen and reached a three-digit category.

In typical child fashion, I was spraying my dad with the usual string of traveling-in-the-car-annoyances. “How much longer Daddy?” “Daddy I’m hungry.” “Daddy I’m thirsty.” “Daddy I have to go to the bathroom.” “Why is it so hot Daddy?”

Before air-conditioned cars had become the norm, I had enjoyed another four-way air cooling system of the day (namely open-car windows) by hanging my head out and allowing the hot wind to blow through my hair whipping my pony-tail into impossible snarls and tangles. I must have looked like a lovable dog entranced with the wind whistling through his ears. I was completely naïve’ to the fact that these private moments with my father would one day become some of my fondest memories.

As we sailed down the highway passing the massive fields, I enjoyed inhaling the pungent fragrance of freshly cut crops that seemed mostly of corn, cotton, and wheat. I gazed curiously at the migrant workers sprinkled throughout the fields with their black skin glistening in the hot summer sun, doing whatever it was that they were doing in those fields. I never was sure. I thought perhaps that I should tell them it was much too hot to be doing it today.

We pulled into the next filling station. It was “country dusty” but well manicured. The small rural station had all the old “goodie” machines for hungry travelers. A glass dome stood on iron legs filled with red-skinned peanuts that had probably been there since the Truman administration. An upright coke machine with a coin slot and a creative metal attachment for prying off soda caps hummed contentedly. Two silver domed gas pumps welcomed us marked Regular and Ethyl. “Daddy is that like Ethel Mertz?”

The gravel crunched under our tires as we rolled to a stop. “Daddy can I have a coke?” “I don’t know, can ya?” He winked and tossed me a nickel. My dad was always a stickler for using only correct grammar and syntax.
I popped my nickel into the red and white machine. I pressed the silver lever down and received my 8 ounce coke, frosty and ice cold in its glass bottle. I pried off the cap and let it fall to the ground adding to the colorful metal cap carpet in front of the machine. “Honey, don’t leave that trash on the ground. Pick it up and put it in the trash barrel.” My dad was also a stickler for keeping America beautiful long before it had become fashionable, even though there were approximately 5000 soda caps already adorning the ground.

I then began searching for the restroom. I found not one but two restrooms designated for my gender. The sign I noticed first had black lettering that had been painted onto a large scrap of white cardboard. It had been nailed to the top of the door. It read "Colored Women". Now I knew the word colored from my crayon box back home, and I had made it my business quite early in life to learn the word women.

I looked down at my arms. I was no woman yet but I certainly did have color.
I started to open the door but Daddy said, “No honey you’re not supposed to go in there. That restroom is for Negro women only. You should use that one.” He pointed to the other door that also had been labeled. This sign read "White Women".
I was appalled. “Hey, how come the Negro women get their own private bathroom?”
I thought I saw my dad smile, but he said nothing as he returned to pay the attendant for pumping Ethyl fuel, airing our tires, and washing our windshield to perfection.

Call it the lure of forbidden fruit. I had to know. What was special about this “Colored Women” restroom? And what did they have that the rest of us didn’t?

When Daddy wasn’t looking I opened the Colored Women door just a crack not knowing what splendors to expect. The rusty doorknob wouldn’t turn. It left orange streaks on my fingers. The small cubicle room was coated in the corners with cobwebs. The toilet seemed only partially attached to the floor, leaning away from several crumbling tiles. The dilapidated throne sported seasons of corrosion and seemed to be growing plants of its own. I watched an over-sized cockroach (or perhaps only and under-sized beetle) scurry into the jagged crack across the tile floor.

The sink appeared to be hanging from the wall. It too was streaked with rusty deposits, formed by the leaky faucet.
One sad looking light bulb protruded down from the ceiling at an odd angle. A solitary soiled string hung from the lonesome bulb. I was unable to reach it but I really didn’t need to see anymore anyway. The room had a smell not so much of filth but more of an unaired quality, like damp towels forgotten in a closed suitcase. It was obvious that this Colored Women restroom had not seen a cleaning in a very long time.

I quickly made the decision to investigate the White Women restroom. I again pushed the door open but much more than a crack this time.

This slightly larger room revealed gleaming porcelain that greeted me like a toothy smile. The room was fragrant with a pine scent that was drifting from a solid emerald green stick perched on the back of the sink. The small window to the right allowed sunlight to pour in and compliment the plain but immaculate restroom by giving it a bright and cheery effect.
I was not immediately aware of my dissipating innocence as I stood noting the details and décor of the “white room”. I recall an odd sensation of dawning, confused by a vague sense of sadness – something like what we feel with the childhood realization that there really is no Santa Claus.

My thoughts were tumbling as I returned to my dad and our awaiting Ford chariot. My mother and brothers were still sleeping, oblivious to what was going on out here in this world.

I was feeling older and wiser but not really sure why. It was not a good feeling.
As my family had again begun our pilgrimage down the canary striped highway, my dad turned the AM radio up slightly. “It’s Mr. Sandman honey,” he smiled as he invited me to sing along with our favorite tune. “I think I’m too tired to sing Daddy.” I again hung my head out the car window feeling the hot wind against my face and listening to Mr. Sandman accompanied by Daddy’s off key humming.

We had resumed our cross country journey and I had resumed my watch over the migrant workers – doing whatever it was that they were doing in those fields.