1968
From ‘The Adventures of The McGaffin’s As We Remember Them’ — a family memoir begun July 17, 2003.
1968 There was a church camping weekend planned at Kerr Lake. We decided that we would include that in our plans. There were quite a few families that came and some had boats. The Leonards had a boat that could pull skiers and they had the ski equipment. On Saturday we all had a chance to learn to ski. It was challenging but great fun. From Kerr Lake we went to visit Grandad and May in Cape May. We found a campground that was near the house. It was a nice facility except almost all of the other groups were French Canadians. It was like being in a foreign country. They liked to party and at night they had a huge bon fire. It was a very noisy celebration. We had a good time at the beach playing miniature golf, swimming, etc.
We left NJ and began our trip west. On the Pennsylvania Turnpike we stopped at a picnic area to have lunch. When we finished I could not start the van. It appeared that the starter was broken. We had to push the car to get it running. It was a weekend so there was no place to get it repaired. We decided to keep going and get it fixed when we got to Janesville. As long as I remembered to leave the engine running when we stopped, we were OK. However, out of habit there were a number of times when I turned off the key and we then had to push again. We always looked for a downward slope to park to make the pushing easier. We stopped at a fast food place and turned off the engine. When we came back to the van, we asked Mom to get in the driver's seat while the rest of us pushed. I told her to let out the clutch when we got it up to speed. We pushed around the building and called out to let out the clutch. But, I had failed to tell her that she had to have the car in gear. So we did it all again successfully this time. From there we went into Ohio to spend a few days with the McFarlans and see the new addition, Stacey, who had been born just a few days before. We did some touring and some sailing in Archie's mini sailboat in a small farm pond. After that we continued on to visit the Gregorys. When it was time to continue on to Janesville, Bill told us all to get in the car and he would push us to get it started. He did it successfully, but for many years afterward he complained because we did not help him push.
