I was nine in 1957, when my father wrenched us from our Longmeadow, MA, home and relocated us to Saranac Lake, NY. The trip, in those days, was a long one.  None of the endless interstates we now take for granted existed.  The journey took us along country roads through western New England, and we meandered into the Adirondack High Peaks area by way of Brattleboro, Rutland, Ticonderoga. 

In truth, we didn’t meander.  Our makeshift caravan – a small, rented truck and a white Pontiac Chieftain – was far slower than that. Each of the vehicles inched its way north, groaning beneath the weight of the burden it carried: our lives. 

Dad had extended the truck’s driver and passenger seats with boxes, crates, and books, which he covered with blankets and pillows on which my 6-year-old brother David and our 3-year-old sister Helen could luxuriate. The Pontiac resembled a Grapes of Wrath conveyance, windows and doors straining to hold back a tsunami of small furniture, pots and pans, household goods; a bicycle and a tricycle strapped to the exterior. Mom, 8.5 months pregnant with her fifth child, drove the car, and I rode shotgun . . . wishing for a gun.  It was my job to wrangle and entertain 15-month-old Alfred, restlessly climbing, relentlessly squealing, refusing to sit still.

After stopping for dinner in dark, cold Rutland, Dad adjusted the blankets and pillows in the truck so that David and Helen could sleep. Mom and I did the same for Alfred in the backseat of the car.  We still had a long way to go.

Instead of sleeping, Alfred wailed and screamed and climbed back and forth between the car’s seats, using my shoulders as a diving board, pulling my hair, prying at the door in attempts to jump out. Mom never stopped driving.  Dad had no way of knowing what was going on in the car, and she could not risk losing sight of the truck. When I finally managed to wrestle Alfred down, force him into my arms, and wedge a bottle into his mouth, I sang, rocking him, till he passed out. 

It began to snow, and Dad stopped to put chains on the tires. Our destination was yet four hours away.

“Don’t you move, Carla,” my mother hissed when Alfred was finally asleep.  I bristled at the menacing tone, unempathetic to the fact that she was monstrously pregnant, hardly able to fit behind the wheel of that car, robbed of any residual patience for a petulant tween or a perseverating toddler.

For four straight hours, I sat with the pressure of that large little person on my lap and a growing pain in my coccyx. 

The temperature dropped to -46º.  Wind swirled in a cacophony of winter wonders, and the snow danced blizzard-like about us.  Neither mom nor dad could see five inches ahead of them, but they drove on.

Anyone who has traveled the North Country through dark winter mountain nights knows how treacherous that drive was, how close we likely came to oblivion. 

We arrived in Saranac Lake in the wee hours of the next morning. 

Dad’s truck haltingly crawled its way to what he remembered was the road that led to the cavernous house he had rented, nearly careening off a railroad bridge in the process. As soon as he righted himself, he stopped.  We all stopped. 

Mom rolled her window down a bit.  Dad yelled to be heard above the din and rage of engines and wind, “Don’t turn the motor off.  We’ll never get it started again.”

He dismounted from the truck to look around with his flashlight. More blowing snow reflected back at him as he walked a few feet in every direction and then stood at the foot of a hill, squinting and grunting. 

Helen began to cry.  Worried that we might wake people in the area, Dad opened the truck and lifted her out of the warm bed.  The cold stung her, and she wailed again. 

“I think this is it,” he finally said as he absent-mindedly put Helen down next to him. 

Suddenly the air was pierced by a howl more terrifying than any banshee or dybbuk could have emitted.  It was Helen’s. She was standing barefoot.  On icy pavement. At 46 below zero.

I placed Alfred on the seat and jumped out of the car to scoop her up and put her back into the truck. Dad grunted again and returned to his driver’s seat.  Mom motioned to me to put my now-squirming little brother back on my lap.

We continued the last three-tenths of a mile to our new home, and two days later, Mom taught us to ski down the hill we had climbed.