Rome roadhouses and the ins and outs of holiday travel
All packed up. I can’t think of the Christmas holidays without thinking about family holiday travel. Today the skies and highways are full of holiday travelers but by today’s measure we didn’t travel far. All of our family lived within the state and it took hours to get anywhere.
In geographical area Georgia is 24th of the 50 states resting between Wisconsin and Illinois and the largest east of the Mississippi River.
My father hauled around the same case of engine oil for years. It was never used and logic said that if you needed that much oil no amount of oil would be enough.
He learned to drive when car engines were leaky, were checked for oil with each fill up.
Dad also carried a tube repair kit and a bicycle pump even when he owned tubeless tires.
He grew up when all roads and major highways were unpaved. The dirt roads were still full of horseshoe nails and early drivers repaired a “puncture” every few miles.
We often traveled by night and my mother packed a basket of food that would make the trip without being kept cool.
Before there were packaged indi- vidual hand cleaners we took damp wash cloths in glass jars.
During the day we stopped to eat at a country church and spread our lunch on newspapers on the hood of the car.
If we stopped at a restaurant my mother first inspected a bathroom. If it was clean we stayed. If it was dirty we moved on. You understand her logic on that.
It is macabre but every Christmas I recall traveling on a rainy night before Christmas passing through Rome, Georgia, on U.S. 27.
The Rome Airport was converted to a Naval Auxiliary Air Station during WWII. A number of businesses sprang up to serve the military personnel.
When the war ended the airport was returned to Floyd County and the businesses continued trying to serve the general population.
A few miles north of town, they had little luck attracting local people to make the drive. They attracted a rougher crowd and by the late 1940s became known as “road houses.”
On that night before Christmas a patron pulled out into traffic and when we passed the wrecked cars and drivers were still cooling off.
My mother’s comment has stayed with me that “there would be an empty chair at someone’s Christmas dinner.”
Rome has grown north along U.S. 27, and three of the buildings are still there. Each Christmas and each time I pass those buildings I think of that rainy night and wonder how those families got along with that empty chair at the table.
Joe Phillips has many connections to Walker County, including his grandfather, former superintendent Waymond Morgan. Email him at joenphillips@hotmail.com.