“There is much to be said for those who maintain that
rather should the race be allowed to die out than that babies should be taken
from place to place along our national arteries of traffic. On the other hand,
there
are moments when babies are asleep. (Oh, yes, there are. There must
be.) But it is practically a straight run of ten or a dozen hours for your
child of four. You may have a little trouble in getting the infant to doze off,
especially as the train newsboy waits crouching in the vestibule until he sees
signs of slumber on the child's face and then rushes in to yell, ‘Copy of Life,
out today!’ right by its pink, shell-like ear. But after it is asleep,
your troubles are over except for wondering how you can shift your ossifying
arm to a new position without disturbing its precious burden.”— American
humorist Robert Benchley (1889-1945), “Kiddie-Kar Travel,” in Pluck and Luck (1925)
Okay, the passage of nearly 100 years means that, more
likely than not, families will be taking planes instead of trains—and the
barking newsboy, with his get-up-and-go energy and entrepreneurial vigor, is a
thing of the post.
But, with school out and the summer travel season upon
us again (and the fear of COVID receding, though not yet entirely gone),
parents (including two I can think of) are about to experience something like
the sheer terror that Benchley is talking about.
Funny how that “ossifying arm” keeps being passed
along from generation to generation…
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