The brat in the back seat throws her weight around...

The radio played my favorite song, "Big Rock Candy Mountain," all summer long in two or three different versions. Burl Ives sang it on the pop stations, and Harry McClintock sang it on the Country and Western stations in between Hank Williams tunes. I loved that song.

I made everybody be quiet whenever it was playing. I would shush them, and I wasn't above climbing into someone's lap and putting a hand over their mouth if they wouldn't shut up talking while I listened to my favorite song.

And then on the trip back to Arkansas, Momma made the mistake of reading a sign that said, "Big Rock Candy Mountain" so many miles down the road. There were more signs often enough that it became a game to me to spot them before Momma could read them. I couldn't read, but I could recognize those signs with their jumble of candy-colored mountains behind a big set of words.

Big Rock Candy Mountain must be a real place, I believed. I began to sing the song and make up my own words about puppy dogs and root beer, and houses made of ice cream. I probably sang it a hundred times, with Momma and Daddy laughing at first but probably getting pretty tired of it after a while.

We came to a fork in the road, just north of Salt Lake City. Turn east here for Arkansas, keep going south for the Big Rock Candy Mountain. A sign with an arrow on it pointed the way to the land of Lemonade Springs and Peppermint Trees. And Daddy turned east.

I howled. I screamed. I cried as only a three-year-old can because adults won't use up their lungs that way. Daddy, the goal-oriented driver, was going to Arkansas and did not intend to make a side-trip to the Big Rock Candy Mountain where little kids could play with the rubber-toothed bulldogs.

Momma tried to reason with me, but I wasn't having any of it. I cried till I choked, and I choked till I puked, and Momma had to crawl into the back to clean me up.

So she tried to reason with him. Couldn't we go on a little farther south before we turned back east? she asked.

No, he said, we'd already passed the turn-off, and it was too late to change our minds. We were going to Arkansas.

I wailed. I blew bubbles of snot out of my nose. I threw up again. Momma cleaned me up once more and put me into the front seat next to Daddy. I got the hiccoughs. I sat there beside him and looked up with my baby blue eyes, and asked him, please could we go see the Big Rock Candy Mountain? Hic.

We stopped for gas. Momma took me to the restroom, and we both changed clothes. When we came out, Daddy had the car filled up and pointed toward the road. We climbed in, and I sat between them in the front seat. Daddy had bought us all soda pop, a root beer for me, and we ate some peanuts.

Daddy called me "Punkin" back then. Punkin, he said, will you promise not to cry for anything else on this whole trip if we go back and see the Big Rock Candy Mountain?

Oh, yes, I said. I promise. Are we going to go back? I asked.

I guess so, said Daddy. We can just keep going south and visit your Aunt Grace and Uncle Herman in Casa Grande. After we see them, we can go back to Arkansas before the winter makes the roads too bad.

I think I started singing again then.

Momma said, maybe we can see the Grand Canyon on the way, too.

Don't you start, said Daddy. That would be another side-trip.

But that's how the song "Big Rock Candy Mountain" kept us from being in Arkansas, so we could go out to California and save my Aunt Opal from starving to death.