Kathryn A. Frazier
Your Story. Your voice. the best it can be.
Road Trip with Dad to Lincoln’s Birthplace
In 1976, Dad and I took a road trip to Indianapolis. On the way, we detoured to Hodgenville, Kentucky, so we could visit the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln. Dad’s ancestors, the Cradys, used to live next door to the Lincolns, and donated some of the land for that first Lincoln memorial. According to the history book, David Crady: Kentucky Pioneer by Evelyn Crady Adams, Thomas Lincoln summoned neighbor Sarah Crady one rainy night to help his wife Nancy as she struggled to give birth to baby Abraham. (I’m guessing he was a big boy.)
We’d visited the museum as a family when I was little, but I remember only disjointed images from that trip: Dad pointing out a plaque with the name Crady on it, a replica log cabin, like the one where a Crady helped her neighbor birth the future president, and a shiny log cabin made of Lincoln pennies, kept under glass.
Dad always started road trips around 3:00am, to get out of Florida and into cooler weather by the heat of the day. And also, I suspect, because I behaved only while sleeping. My older sister, Terry the Beloved, always behaved and always got carsick. In a transparent grab for attention, she’d throw up. But I aways wrestled the attention back. I’d feign car sickness too, so Mom would give me the concerned look, offer me sips of Shasta cola, and tell Dad to pull over and let me “get some air.”
On those trips, I slept curled around the hump of the carpeted backseat floor in our 1969 Buick Skylark, while the Beloved stretched out across the sticky vinyl benchseat. We didn’t use seatbelts. Mom and Dad would take turns driving. We’d stop long enough to use the restroom or eat breakfast, they’d switch places, and we’d get back on the road.
This time, though, it was just Dad and me. I was twelve. We started out from Tampa 
around 3:00am, as usual. I stayed awake as long as I could. Even though we were heading north, the car felt warm and the monotonous highway made me drowsy. Just about the time we reached Hodgenville, I was out. Dad woke me, but I refused to budge. I slept in the car while he visited the museum without me.
I used to wish that I’d taken an interest in the museum, and in my family’s fleeting connection to one of the greatest men of American history. I used to feel guilty for sleeping through what could have been a good father-daughter bonding time. But Dad just kept teasing me.
He teased me about that trip for the rest of his life. Every chance he got, he told people, “She ain’t interested. I drive miles out of my way to expose her to a little history, show her a little bit of her roots, but she don’t care. She’d rather sleep.” And he’d wink at me and laugh.
Parenting a twelve-year-old can be challenging. I’m so thankful that Dad gave it a try, and that he laughed at me about it for the next thirty-nine years. It was a good father-daughter bonding after all.
Happy President’s Day,
Kathy
Leave a Tip
Thank you for your continued support! Every dollar donated helps keep this site ad-free and allows me to spend more time writing, helping other writers, and providing free content.
$1.00
Kathryn A. Frazier 