With the holiday approaching, I know we will spend a lot of time together in the car. I start to have flashbacks when that happens.

As a kid, we did a ton of traveling. We drove pretty much all up and down the East Coast. I think I had visited every coastal state by the time I was 6.

I’ve done my time in the car.

The worst part about it is that I am the youngest. We didn’t have Spartan accommodations, but I didn’t really get to experience any luxury on these excursions.

I don’t blame my parents. I believe they wanted me to enjoy myself in great comfort. I blame my siblings who crowded me and the guy who invented the middle hump seat in 1970s vehicles.

I think I have a permanent indention in my caboose thanks to that thing. I didn’t spend that much time on it when I was really young. The pain came as I got older and our cars got smaller. The trips then were luckily shorter, but I still had to sit on a piece of metal covered by a think layer of carpet.

I couldn’t even escape the hump on non-family trips. I once drove straight from Baltimore to Iowa – a 24-hour journey – with four other guys to compete in a national wrestling tournament.

Our coach drove us in his Dodge Colt. As the smallest guy, I got the hump. For 24 hours. Next to a hyperactive guy who didn’t stop moving the entire trip.

At least on the hump I got to see where we were headed. I spent the early years facing backwards in the “way back seat” of our monster station wagon.

I can only complain about the view from that seat. I think safety experts have ruined the fun of seats like that with all their concern for people being flung out of cars and such. Spoil sports.

You could make faces at truckers. One person could lie on the floor and catch a nap. Dad couldn’t conceivably reach all the way back there to swat you if you goofed off. It was heaven.

That bliss wouldn’t live for long because dad always had something up his sleeve. He had pretty much scared the bejesus out of all of us – well, me at least – with his threat to pull the car over.

Why didn’t I see through that threat when I was 8? Why did I really think he was going to take me to the woodshed on the side of I-95?

I probably would have preferred that to my mother’s favorite threat – sit on your hands. That doesn’t sound that bad, but try it for a while. Especially sitting in the middle of three people.

Believe it or not, I loved those car trips. That’s why I still love to travel, I think. When I talk to people who get car sick, I just can’t fathom such a thing. I could never get sick from driving around.

Of course I say that now. Talk to me after Christmas.