Westward Whoa

There was an incident over the weekend in which a Pennsylvania couple was found to be transporting their 9 kids and 18 cats in a rental truck bound for California. They were down on their luck, and chose to make the trip in hopes of bettering their situation. The couple was arrested, and the kids put in foster care, and I have no information on the cats. The issue seems to have been that 5 of the kids were riding in the cargo area of the truck, and although they had been provided with sleeping bags and blankets, the temperature was recorded at 32 degrees.

 
In 1846, a group of 87 Americans left Missouri for California in hopes of bettering their situation. Although they left in May, they were crossing the Sierra Nevada Mountains in deep winter, and many of them, including children, did not survive. They weren't the first, nor were they the last pioneers to face death on the trail. One look at the flimsy wagons with cloth covers should tell us just how cold they got. Yet, many survived, and arrived at their destinations and are some of the most venerated families in our country's history. It's a good thing there was no highway patrol to stop them.

In 1990, a couple left California in a Dodge van conversion with 6 kids and a cat, hoping to find a better situation in the Midwest, home of the pioneers. A news article about the couple called them "reverse pioneers."  They probably should have been arrested. Things were pretty tight in that van.
The cat litter box was tucked under the seat, and in the August  heat it tended to get ripe before we had a chance to dump it. The van's air conditioner could barely keep up with 9 breathing creatures. The cat was over-dosed on some tranquilizer the vet had given us, and spent most of the trip draped over the seat like a mink stole.
Whenever we stopped for gas the car exploded with barefoot kids running every direction, looking for bathrooms, food and payphones. There was always a race for the payphones which might contain some abandoned coins. One daughter made eleven long-distance calls to her friends before we reached Reno. She did not leave California happily, and I suppose that was probably also abusive.
We were towing a small U-Haul trailer, and the kids were begging to ride back there, away from the cat and the heat and my husbands "geeky" music on the cassette deck.

Our right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness seems to depend on the vehicle we choose for our personal adventure.