When I was growing up our family always drove to the valley, to Portland from our small town of Redmond, to be with my mother’s family for the Christmas holidays. It was a large tribe: Nana and Papa, Aunt Mary & Uncle Vince and their brood of seven (each kid in our family matched up in age with one of theirs), Uncle Butch & Aunt Alice, Auntie’s Dodi & Anna, who lived with Nana and Papa in the house where they were born, (where all ten of their children were born) and numerous other aunts, uncles and cousins racing in and out. These holidays were the highlight of the otherwise long, cold and school-laden winter; Nana’s raviolis and Aunt Mary’s cherry pie, the football games, the banter of the Uncles, playing Scrabble with the Aunt’s and exploring the streets and surrounds of the big city. Nana’s house (it was always her house, even after she was gone for twenty years) sat a few hundred yards from the railroad tracks. I loved the sound of it clacking along the rails, the whistle’s sharp call. Tramps and hobos would often come to the back door for a handout, which Nana always gave. The neighborhood was a little Europe, with Italians, Greeks, Irish, Germans, accents from places that were faraway and a little scary to a girl of seven or eight. Next door on the south side of their place was a “haunted” house inhabited by a Boo Radley type and on the other a robust Irish family, with two handsome red-headed boys in their teens.

On the appointed day of departure I would pack my small bag with pajamas, a sweater, long-sleeved shirts, knit pants, socks and mittens. My sisters and brother would do the same. Dad was always the first one out the door and sitting in the car, tooting the horn and hollering out the window to “Get a move on!” or “What are you doing in there, writing a novel?” He didn’t have to pack himself, nor was he subject to any of the last minute preparations like my mother: cleaning the kitchen, turning off all the lights, turning down the furnace, checking each child’s bags to make sure they brought what they needed, packing hers and Dad’s things—not to mention staying up until two or three a.m. the night before wrapping gifts for each cousin and each one of us with Santa Claus or angel wrapping paper, curled ribbon and red, green or gold bows. Dad’s duties were long ago completed—the car had a tank of gas, oil and anti-freeze checked and the heavy box of chains stashed in the back of the station wagon. When the time had arrived to depart (usually at some ungodly pre-noon time) Dad would begin to rattle his keys, yell upstairs and then down into the basement, “Get a move on! It’s time to go and be sure and go to the bathroom before you get in the car.” (This last command repeated several times, with the final one as we were all seated and ready to go in the driveway.) It was always Mom who would run out last, breathless and laughing, while Dad shook his head and honked as she dashed around the front of the car and slid onto the front seat.

Dad was a good driver. He had to be. There were five children and his wife in the car when we took those trips over the pass. My brother, being the oldest and only boy, rode in the front, with Mom between him and Dad. My three sisters and I crammed into the back seat and, if room allowed, one or two of us would climb into the back of the station wagon to lay out flat on our bellies and watch the road rush out behind us. The chatter (perhaps better classified as shrieking) that would go on as we pulled out of town and north through Terrebonne, Culver then Madras, would often rise to a deafening crescendo before Dad would turn around and tell us to “Shut UP!” This would subdue us for at least a few miles, before the poking and giggling and the inevitable whining and pressing to know how much longer and if “we were there yet”  would begin to slowly rise again.

I can’t imagine how he drove those roads; one hundred and fifty miles with rambunctious kids jostling about in the back and he, with his large hands firmly on the twelve and nine position of the steering wheel, able to command those steep mountain grades and S-ing curves through snow and ice and slashing rain. I dreaded when the road wound along beside the Deschutes River, on the northern side of the Warm Springs Reservation, just past the rundown shacks and dilapidated schoolhouse, the tall stacks of the sawmill and no-window bars lining Highway 97. I could see it out the window, two to three hundred feet below, running fast, frothy tips on the rapids, making its way north and west to the Columbia, to the sea. There was rarely snow on that stretch, or ice or bad weather of any kind, but the road climbed steeply and the curves were treacherous to maneuver. There were eighteen wheelers loaded with logs or cattle or bales of hay careening down from the other side or sandwiching us between them and then there was the attempt to pass with the accelerator plunged to the floor and everyone in the car holding their breath. From the back seat it was all so terrifying; the drop off, hurtling trucks, the signs warning of falling rocks. In dreams for years I saw the car missing a curve, flying off into space, nose diving into the freezing and fast rising water.

As we climbed into the forested southern side of Mt. Hood there was often snow falling steadily and intermittent signs staked into the snow banks alerting all drivers that in a few miles it would be necessary to pull over and apply chains. This we all dreaded; getting out of the toasty car, stepping into dirty, mushy, grimy snow or onto hard-packed, slippery ice. Dad would lift the hatch and pull out the jack and chains from under the packages and suitcases. He’d crank up first the back, then the front of our green Pontiac, crawl halfway under the car, lie on his back, roll the chains out and link them together over each tire. His fingers turned purple. His breath puffed out into the frigid air, along with a few choice words whenever the chains didn’t co-operate or one of us dared to whimper or complain. No one could help him. We were girls and my brother, until he was older, only got in the way. This was a man’s job. It was as primal as circling the wagons or putting on a suit of armor and going forth to defend the castle.

When we reached the summit and began our descent into warmer climes, the fir and pine would give way to cedar and maple, the snow to drizzling rain. We would pass through the tiny town of Rhododendron, where we’d all shout, “The Bear, The Bear!” and roll down our windows to gape. We’d beg Dad to stop so we could behold it standing thirty feet high by the side of the road, white teeth bared, giant paws clawing the air, this king of the forest, completely covered in dense, almost-black ivy. Our pleading was to no avail and we’d whisk by, barely slowing to catch a glimpse. We knew we were close to Portland and Nana’s house when the stench of the pulp mills would slide into the car and stripped raspberry and blackberry vines in perfect rows would race by us in the fields beside the road. The pitch in our voices would begin to rise as we passed the signs for the towns of Sandy and Gresham. If we had calmed down at all during the three hour drive all semblance of it quickly vanished. The excitement of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day was imminent.

We were on Powell Street, passing Lincoln High on the right, where Mom went to school, Powell Park on the left and the grocers where Nana rolled her wire cart every day to pick up bread and onions and wine. We were turning onto 20th and pulling up in front of their house; the rose bushes cut back for the winter and Papa’s vegetable garden fallow in the backyard. As soon as the engine died we burst from the confines of our cramped car and ran up the steps onto the porch clamoring to get past the aluminum screen door and through into the aroma of Nana’s tomato sauce simmering on the stove, her eyes glowing at the sight of us, Papa’s rough stubble rubbing our cheeks and the Christmas tree, dripping with colored lights and tinsel, tucked in the corner of their tiny living room. It seemed to me that the moment we stepped into Nana’s house the laughter began and never ceased for all the days we were there, until the morning would arrive when we’d reluctantly pile back into our car for the drive east, over the mountains and home again.