(originally published in Midnight Mind Number Seven)
Picture the novel, On the Road, but instead of young, wayward youth on drugs, you have retired couples spending their weekends — or long summers — on the wide-open road, pulling a camper. The American travel decal of the 1950s and 1960s was the blue-collar equivalent of the suitcase labels from hotels around the world applied to well-heeled classes of the same time period. The travel decal was the tattoo of the road warriors: those who had no fear for 8 miles to the gallon pickup trucks or overpowered chevy sedans pulling gleaming Airstreams.
They were sold from racks in gas stations, park headquarters, tourist shops and blue-topped Stuckey’s. Kitsch? Borderline. But the marketing decisions back then weren’t made by corporate marketing departments because the businesses were owned by real people – usually local. They owned one hotel – not a chain. They owned a few acres of land that had caves and—boom—they had a tourist stop on their hands! Jungle Larry’s in Naples? Owned by Larry and Nancy.
Finding them now on the backs of pickup truck campers, cracked, flaking, but wonderfully colorful, conjures up cross country trips exploring our vast, promising nation. Is there an equivalent today? Today, people barely put stickers on their cars. Maybe a small “Steal your Face”. Maybe—though a stretch—a “my kid is a straight A student at –”. Or political stickers. RVs have the map that you try to fill in. A distant relative of the travel decal, no doubt. But no stickers showing you were at Put-In-Bay Ohio. No inappropriate co-opting of Native American imagery. No inappropriate bikini girls. No decals showing you were on Custer’s side.
Nostalgia? Certainly now.
But maybe not for the decals themselves. Maybe the longing is for the days when any dreamer with a piece of land could create a tourist trap. A “Mystery Spot.” A safari. Maybe the nostalgia is for what unexpected diversion used to be waiting around the next corner. Maybe it reminds us of a shining time of roadside America and it’s ability to surprise you and remind you that it’s good to be alive and on the open road.
