Earliest road memories

[brianreynolds]

Like many road enthusiasts, my interest in roads dates back to early childhood.   But just how early?  I recently set about to try to put a date to my earliest road-related memories.

I grew up in suburban Detroit.  There were two reliably annual road trips from my childhood.  My mother's first cousin had a cottage at Silver Lake, about 40 miles north of Muskegon that we visited every year.  My dad's family was from the rural area north of Bay City, and his family reunion was always Labor Day weekend, always in Bay City.  My mother grew up in Albion, and we would visit there a few times every year.

I don't have specific memories related to the Bay City trips, except that the earliest were via Telegraph Road (US-24), Dixie Highway (US-10) and M-15 north from Clarkston.  Later trips were via US-16 and US-23 from Brighton.  I would guess that freeway completions (US-23 and I-75) accounted for the re-route.

I distinctly remember the segment of US-16 east of Lansing, and following along on the map as we passed through Fowlerville, Webberville, Williamston, Okemos.  The Michigan Highways website doesn't say, but the best information I can find from MDOT indicates that the freeway replacing this segment opened in late 1962.  So these memories could be from any year (or years) prior.  I know I had earlier memories than that.

I finally nailed down one good indication that my road interest started much earlier.  On our trips to Albion, we would take the most modern road then available, US-12, portions of which were already limited-access freeway. 

I have very few vivid memories from my early years, but this one is high-resolution digital photographic quality.  We were westbound on US-12 in western Jackson County, only a few miles from our destination in Albion. 

Just east of the junction with M-99, on US-12 (Michigan Avenue in Jackson County) we crossed the very active under-construction route of the new freeway that would become I-94.  Both of the ribbons of concrete had been laid up to within a hundred feet or so on both sides of the road we were traveling.  Only that short gap needed to be filled in for the new concrete pavement to be complete.

MDOT chose to not construct a bridge to carry the old road over the new road, instead re-routing the old road parallel with and north of the freeway over to M-99.  Have a look at http://tinyurl.com/qf22c7s   
The photo shows the M-99 interchange, the I-94 freeway, the reroute and the old now-abandoned US-12.  In my memory, the old road had not yet been severed.

The date-stamp for my virtual-memory photo?  Well, according to Chris Bessert's Michigan Highways website, the US-12 freeway east of M-99 was completed in 1958, the segment west from there in 1959.

I would have been seven years old in the summer of 1958.  My interest in roads and maps probably pre-dates that.

[sammi]

Roughly ten years ago (I can't put a specific year) I remember sitting in the car with my dad going to Manila. We always went on MacArthur Highway (PH-3) and North Luzon Expwy (PH-Toll2), two of only four highways I knew at the time.

On MacArthur Highway, I would read the town names off the arches we went under as we went through each town. On NLEX, I would read the town names off the BGSes, which always had the name of the town on them (I kid you not, some of them actually look like this):



and after a few more trips I had the sequence memorized. MacArthur: Bangar, Luna, Balaoan, Bacnotan, San Juan, San Fernando, Bauang, Caba, Aringay, Agoo, Santo Tomas, Rosario, Sison, Pozorrubio, Urdaneta, Villasis, Rosales, San Manuel, Moncada, Paniqui, Gerona, Tarlac, Capas, Bamban, Mabalacat; NLEX: Mabalacat, Angeles, San Fernando, Mexico, San Simon, Apalit, Pulilan, Calumpit, Balagtas, Guiguinto, Malolos, Bocaue, Marilao, Meycauayan, Valenzuela, Caloocan.

[bandit957]

It had to be before I turned 3, which was in 1976. I remember going on a family trip to visit relatives in Philadelphia, and being surprised to see an Interstate 70 somewhere along the way. "But, but, but 71 and 75 are the only Interstates," I thought to myself. (I don't remember being on I-74 much before then, and I-275 and I-471 were in their infancy.)

My earliest local road memories were probably on US 27 going from Highland Heights north into Southgate. I invented a sound to describe the curve on the yellow warning signs.

[bandit957]

Also, when I was about 4, which was around 1977 or 1978, I became interested in the construction of I-471 around Woodlawn - after this project decimated a local street called Lourdes Lane. My family had always used Lourdes Lane to drive to some stores in Bellevue, and we were shocked to find it destroyed by construction.

When this occurred, I got out a paper grocery bag and drew a map of the neighborhood.

I also remember the old Graphic Street Guide maps put out by Metro Graphic Arts.

[roadman65]

I remember my first road memories to be on a trip to Plymouth, MA from New Jersey where I lived when I grew up.  We were passing by a freeway ramp that appeared to be a trumpet interchange, and then when we passed under the intersecting highway I remember looking at the bridge to be a long endless viaduct with a tractor trailer in the distance heading towards us from the left.  The location will always be a mystery to me, but its my first recollection of roads that I remember.

[Alps]

My first memories on the road are back to age 4. Photography started at age 5, but only of scenery. I noticed Botts Dots at that age, and I remember drawing maps with them on a pad from Petaluma Creamery (in fact, I remember drawing a map with them inside the creamery, probably right after getting said pad) (in fact, I will be revisiting it nearly 30 years later just because of how much I loved that pad as a kid). My next road memories actually skip way ahead into my teens.

[wxfree]

My earliest memory of roads is from a couple of months before I was a year old.  That's strange, but it was an unconscious memory.

In my childhood, I had a dream several times.  I was on my bicycle on a four-lane divided highway in a rural area.  It was at a T-intersection, and the terminating route was to my left.  I somehow knew that left was the way home, and that it was 400 miles.  I despaired having so far to go.  Strangely, I wasn't going left toward home, I was going straight ahead.

Years later, about 5 years ago, I thought about that dream and realized I knew where it was, and that I'd been there as an adult.  It was US 90 where US 385 splits off going north, after a short concurrency.  The way I'd dreamed it was very nearly the way it actually looked.  The only time I'd been there before the dream was as a baby.  I must have seen it and heard the adults talking about it and somehow remembered it.  On that trip, we didn't head north from there; we went east to Langtry.

My earliest real memory is probably going shopping in Fort Worth with my aunt.  I didn't care for shopping, but I wanted to go along for the ride.  I've always liked rural drives, but at that time seeing the city freeways was really neat.

[US81]

My earliest real memory is probably going shopping in Fort Worth with my aunt.  I didn't care for shopping, but I wanted to go along for the ride.  I've always liked rural drives, but at that time seeing the city freeways was really neat.

On a slight tangent, it was a shopping trip to downtown Ft. Worth on the old Leonard's/Tandy Center subway that probably ignited my interest in mass transit & rail. 

[bandit957]

My interest in roads has alternated with an interest in radio stations. For a while in junior high school, I didn't care much about roads, but then my favorite radio station was gutted, so my interest in roads roared back with a vengeance. That lasted a couple years before the radio interest came back with an even greater vengeance. I majored in radio/TV in college.

Then the Telecommunications Act of 1996 decimated the broadcasting industry, and the rest as they say is history.

[Takumi]

I remember the toll booths on I-95's portion of the Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike. They were removed in 1992 when I was 6. (There are still at least two covered toll banners still in the wild, both on VA 144; possibly another still around in Richmond.) I also remember the subsequent exit renumbering and "old exit" signs that were up for a short time after.

[roadman65]

I remember once the Wheeling Tunnel on I-70 as a child, but did not come alive until after the trip I took in 89, several years later.  It was back in 1970 when I was 5 years old on a cross country trip from NJ to CA when I first saw it.  However, when going from NJ to KY in July 1989, I drove the I-70 through the WV Panhandle and when I saw the tunnel portals is automatically registered that I was once here before.  The Wheeling Tunnels on I-70 have different portal shapes at each end, that struck me odd when I was a small youngster that was kept alive, but buried in my mind.

[The High Plains Traveler]

It's weird, the shit you remember. I have a brief memory of driving with my mother on the San Bernardino Freeway near downtown L.A. and reading highway signs out loud. I read off, "Gravy Avenue", misreading Garvey. Probably about 4 at the time.

[roadman65]

Your mind records things that you do not know until you visit a place again!

[hotdogPi]

I remember seeing route shields in Connecticut (I was probably on I-84) and wondering what the difference was between the green squares, the white squares, and the white shield-shaped routes.

Only Connecticut has green squares, and even then, only on BGS.

[roadman65]

I remember seeing route shields in Connecticut (I was probably on I-84) and wondering what the difference was between the green squares, the white squares, and the white shield-shaped routes.

Only Connecticut has green squares, and even then, only on BGS.

California uses green shields on BGSes and so did Florida in a few places up until the 1990's.  NJ even had them on the Garden State Parkway back in the 70's.

[brianreynolds]

I just looked up a website about the Detroit Street Railway system.  The Detroit municipal bus system went by the DSR name for many years (until 1974) after the streetcars were gone.

I distinctly remember the old electric-operated (from overhead wires) streetcars, and the sparks flying from the wires as the streetcar moved along.

The last streetcar along Michigan Avenue (US-112 at that time) was September 7, 1955. I was 4 1/2 years old that summer.

[TEG24601]

My earliest road memories involve driving HI 76 to H-1, to Honolulu International Airport to pick up my dad.

[CNGL-Leudimin]

I remember there was a section of N-330 expressway (current A-23) between Huesca and Zaragoza still U/C and we had to go in the road. The expressway opened on December 28th, 1998. I was 5 back then.

I also remember the route to the beach consisted of the following numbers: N-240, A-2, C-240 and AP-2. Yup, two numbers twice To make the things worse, what was then A-2 is now AP-2 , luckily the former AP-2 was renumbered to C-14 (along with C-240) three years before A-2 was changed to AP-2. And even worse is that C-240 had a concurrency with N-240. At some point the N-240 section that parallels former A-2/current AP-2 was improved so the route was changed to avoid the t(r)oll.

[1995hoo]

Hard for me to answer this. I always liked maps and I know by age 5 I was giving my parents directions. I'm sure by that point I was demanding in advance to know whether my dad was going to use "Cars Only" or "Cars-Trucks-Buses" on the Jersey Turnpike.

In the second grade my teacher didn't like it that I "drew little badges on the numbers" on math assignments (when the number was one I knew like 495, 270, etc.).

I remember on our first trip to Nags Head when I was four years old (so August 1977, as we always took family vacations in August) my mother remarking that the road south from Virginia ran past "Barfo" and "Slimo" (real names: Barco and Sligo). I also remember on that trip my father explaining to me how passing zones worked on two-lane roads.

[Urban Prairie Schooner]

When I was about five years old my family travelled to Disney World. I vividly remember passing through the Wallace Tunnel in Mobile. This tunnel would remain semi-mythical in my mind until around eight years later when we passed through it again on another vacation trip (Gulf Shores).

From that same trip I also have vague memories of the roads in the Kissimmee area, which I happen to remember is where our hotel was located. I am guessing one of the roads was US 192, as passing through there again in 1999 jogged my memory. Another road was clearly I-4 as I remember seeing the shields and was impressed that there were interstates with numbers beside "10".

[hm insulators]

I have vague memories of a first trip between Glendora, California and Phoenix, Arizona when I was probably about three, maybe four years old, in the mid-1960s, I suppose. Leaving sometime at night, coming into Blythe during dawn, a spot where the highway curved just past some water or grain tanks, the road crossing under the railroad track in Wickenburg, Arizona. In 1997, my parents moved to near Phoenix and my first trip, I used US 60 between I-10 and Wickenburg and some of the stuff I remember was still there, like those grain tanks by where the road curves just east of Aguila. 

[bandit957]

Sometimes these early memories actually look different from reality. I remember an early memory of US 27 approaching A.J. Jolly County Park that seemed to have psychedelic surroundings - almost like the old 7-Up advertising signs of the '70s. But when I went through there later, it was nothing like that.

[bzakharin]

My first road-related memory was back in Russia. It was the first time I encountered a stop sign, yes, spelled out in the Latin alphabet (which I couldn't read at the time). I tried to puzzle out how to read it or what the word meant only to be told by my father after I couldn't do it. I did know what it meant once I heard it, since it exists in Russian with similar, although more narrow, meaning.

In the US, the first peculiar road-related thing I noticed were little signs in the median of the NJ Turnpike (see https://www.google.com/maps/@39.934589,-74.948736,3a,75y,39.87h,72.8t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sUUAmQVTX4wtby_LhhaWpfw!2e0!5m1!1e1). At some point once I knew Hebrew, I started referring to thee symbol as "chof-c" (the chof looks like an inverted c). Much later did I finally puzzle out that these always occurred 1000 feet ahead of a median crossover for official vehicles (and realized there were similar "Z" signs for crossing between car and truck lanes). By the way, are these specific to the Turnpike or do similar signs appear elsewhere?

[SD Mapman]

I guided a van of stranded airline passengers from Alpena to Sault Sainte Marie when I was 5 (and I'm from South Dakota).

[roadman]

My earliest road memory is when I was about four or five and riding with my father on Route 128 (now I-95) through Wakefield (MA).  It was just after dusk, and my dad said to me "See this sign (a mid-1960s MassDPW button copy on painted plywood background ground-mounted BGS)?  Watch me make it blink."  He then flipped his high beams on and off two or three times, and the sign appeared to blink.

I also have no memory of never being able to read (even on the most basic level).  I've been told I started to read just after I turned two.  The family story is that I taught myself to read at such an young age by looking at highway signs (everything was text back then) on car trips around town.