Don't Make Me Pull Over!: An Informal History of the Family Road Trip

(Paperback)

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A lighthearted, entertaining trip down Memory Lane (Kirkus Reviews), Dont Make Me Pull Over! offers a nostalgic look at the golden age of family road tripsbefore portable DVD players, smartphones, and Google Maps.

The birth of Americas first interstate highways in the 1950s hit the gas pedal on the road trip phenomenon and families were soon streamingsans seatbelts!to a range of sometimes stirring, sometimes wacky locations. In the days before cheap air travel, families didnt so much take vacations as survive them. Between home and destination lay thousands of miles and dozens of annoyances, and with his family Richard Ratay experienced all of themfrom being crowded into the backseat with noogie-happy older brothers, to picking out a souvenir only to find that a better one might have been had at the next attraction, to dealing with a dad who didnt believe in bathroom breaks.

Now, decades later, Ratay offers an amiable guidefun and informative (New York Newsday) that goes down like a cold lemonade on a hot summers day (The Wall Street Journal). In hundreds of amusing ways, he reminds us of what once made the Great American Family Road Trip so great, including twenty-foot land yachts, oasis-like Holiday Inn Holidomes, Smokey-spotting Fuzzbusters, twenty-eight glorious flavors of Howard Johnsons ice cream, and the thrill of finding a good buddy on the CB radio.

An informative, often hilarious family narrative [that] perfectly captures the love-hate relationship many have with road trips (Publishers Weekly), Dont Make Me Pull Over! reveals how the family road trip came to be, how its evolution mirrored the countrys, and why those magical journeys that once brought families togetherfor better and worsehave largely disappeared.

Reviews

The seasons most playful (and best titled) entry . . . [Ratay] vividly captures that relatively brief but iconic time before cheap air travel and Wi-Fi, when six people locked up together in a tiny padded room, hurtling down the highway without seatbelts, was something not simply to be enjoyed but survived. UnderRatays confident and relaxed spell, anyone of a certain age will be instantly transported back to those more innocent times when Fuzzbusters and eight-track players were the order of the day . . . Deceptively informative, this high-spirited romp down the byways of America is part social history, part memoir, and a loving salute to that brief time when the wood-paneled family station wagon was king of the open road.
Andrew McCarthy, New York Times Book Review
Dont Make Me Pull Over! is nostalgia-glazedcharming[and] poignant.
Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air
With smartphones and rear-seat entertainment systems, the family road-trip experience has changed dramatically, writes Ratay in this enjoyable reminiscence on what they used to be . . . [His] informative, often hilarious family narrative perfectly captures the love-hate relationship many have with road trips.
Publishers Weekly
Richard Ratays long-distance childhood adventures in his familys giant land cruisers are at the center of Dont Make Me Pull Over!, a breezy and warm-hearted informal history of the great American family road tripIt all goes down like a cold lemonade on a hot summers day. Mr. Ratay is a charming raconteur who always seems to know just when its time to get us all back into the car with his big, quintessentially middle-class family.
Wall Street Journal
As someone who missed the golden age of the family road trip,I foundDont Make Me Pull Over!a wonderful revelation, filled with unexpectedand frequently amusinginsights into how so much of our culture was built.
Rob Erwin, author ofLost with Directions: Ambling Around America
If only this book were available to Clark Griswold, he and his family might well have stayed home. Dont Make Me Pull Over! is an encyclopedia of road trip adventures.
Chevy Chase, star of National Lampoons Vacation and Saturday Night Live
"A book with a title as good as Dont Make Me Pull Over! has a lot to live up to, and somehow Richard Ratay manages to deliver. Its a memoir, a work of popular history, and a love letter all in one. Books this wise are seldom so funny; books this funny are rarely so wise."
Andrew Ferguson, author of Land of Lincoln and Crazy U
Captures all the adventure, bonding, desperate conflict, and existential self-interrogation that is only made possible by hours (and hours) on the road with your family. Read it, but probably dont read it while also driving your family around.
John Hodgman, author of More Information than You Require and Vacationland
"Ratay's impressively researched book isn't just a road trip across Americait's a trip back in time.Suddenly I was eight years old again and bouncing around seatbelt-free in the back of a Ford Country Squire station wagon."
Ken Jennings, record-breaking "Jeopardy!" champion, andauthor of Maphead
Ratay has perfectly captured the essence of what it was like to embark on a road trip in the golden days of family vacations. Combining spot-on history and a great sense of humor Don't Make Me Pull Over! feels so authentic I got carsick reading it.
Jane Stern,co-author of Roadfood
I was laughing the whole way.As an expert on the 1970s (I was there) I encourage you to climb in, wait for that sweet Toronado engine to purr, and let Rich Ratay take you on his wonderful ride through the great American pastime known as the family road trip.
Tom Shillue, author of Mean Dads for a Better America
Entertaining social history spiced with funny family memories. The characters include the first man to drive a car around the world, in 1906 (before fast food!). And America's first highway czar, who served under seven presidents until Eisenhower fired him. And then there's Ratay himself, as a 10-year-old, on the CB radio: Blue Thunder here, gobbling up the zipper dashes like PacMan rollin' for a power pill. Great stuff.
Paul Ingrassia,author of Engines of Change
Takes us back to the once popular family road trips of vacationing Americans in the 1970's. Stuffed into astation wagon filled with luggage and provisions, backseat-bound Rich typically set off on adventures that possessed all the idiosyncratic melodrama of family life but played out in a confined space.
Anthony Sammarco, author of Lost Boston and The History of Howard Johnsons
"Smooth prose that entertains and enlightens . . . For anyone who has ever been on a road trip, or is planning to take one, this book is a must read."
Michael Wallis,Route 66: The Mother RoadandThe Lincoln Highway: Coast to Coast from Times Square to the Golden Gate

Author Bio

Richard Ratay was the last of four kids raised by two mostly attentive parents in Elm Grove, Wisconsin. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a degree in journalism and has worked as an award-winning advertising copywriter for twenty-five years. Ratay lives in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, with his wife, Terri, their two sons, and two very excitable rescue dogs.