Sick In the Summer

Is there anything worse than being sick? Yes, there is - being sick in the summer. We’re all kind of used to getting sick in the dead of winter, but being sick at the height of summer is just wrong. Summer is supposed to be long, lazy days of friends, fun, and games. It’s supposed to be a time to relax and chill out, not have the chills. So when my son recently was sick for a few days, I really felt for him.

Luckily for him, my wife and I weren’t like my Mom and didn’t make him stay inside for a couple of extra days just to make sure he was truly better. Back when I was growing up, Mom always made us stay in and do next-to-nothing for an extra day after being sick. I don’t really know if it was make sure we were no longer sick or if it was just a deterrent to faking sickness so we could miss a day of school (of course, I never did that!). Either way, I didn’t want to have to stay in the house any longer than I had to, especially in the summer.

Who would want to miss a couple of days of wiffle ball, playing catch, riding bikes, and chasing the ice cream man for a freebie? Certainly not me or any of my old friends. Even on those sauna-like August days when we just sat under a tree and read our comic books or Mad magazine while listening to our AM transistor radios, it was so much better than being cooped up in the house. As you can probably guess, growing up in a family of nine, we had no air conditioners in the house. That is, unless you consider opening up the windows and turning on the big blue fan in the living room air conditioning. I really didn’t care for staying inside.

I remember one summer when I was about 10 years old, I had a headache and was really hot, so I told my Mom. She took my temperature and it turned out that I had a fever. Mom gave me some aspirin (St. Joseph’s aspirin for children, chewable and supposedly orange flavored - blah) and made me go lie on my bed and read so that I would get better quicker. I wasn’t supposed to do anything outside of that bed in my room. While I laid there staring up at the ceiling, contemplating how to get out of the mess I got myself into, I could hear the kids in the neighborhood outside, running around, and doing what I wanted to be doing. I don’t know which made me feel worse, having a fever or hearing my friends having a great time outside.

At some point I fell asleep and woke up a few hours later feeling much better, so I went and told Mom that I was ready to go outside. She politely told me that I still needed to rest, and that I needed to stay in the house. There was no argument, no trying to convince her I was okay, and no chance I was getting out of the house. Maybe, she said, I could go out the next day if kept getting better. Miracle of miracles, I was better the next day. There was absolutely no way I was going to tell her I didn’t feel anything but wonderful. I was going out and I wasn’t going to miss another precious day of vacation. Ah, but Mom had other ideas and I had to stay in another day, “just to make sure.” If I ever got sick in the summer again, I don’t remember telling Mom, because that meant multiple lost days of being outside with friends.

So my son got over whatever he had after a few days and went back to his normal life; work, friends, being out of the house, and enjoying the summer. The amazing part was that this all happened without being forced to stay in the house, up in his room, for one extra day. I wish I could have had that when I was a kid, whether I got sick in the winter, spring, summer, or fall. But like I said, there’s nothing worse than being sick in the summer.

Time to Get Away

Summertime means vacation time. I try to take two weeks of vacation over the summer, usually a week in July and a week in August. My week in July is usually the week that includes July 4^th. Not only is it a great week to have off from work, but I only have to use four days of vacation time because of the holiday. I have spent the 4^th of July on the island of Martha’s Vineyard for the last 27 years, except for two, maybe three years. I think my kids have missed one 4^th of July on the Vineyard in their lives and they’re eighteen and fifteen.

It has been great going to the Vineyard over the years, from the time when the kids were little up to the present. We’ve gone to the beach, we’ve gone to the playground, we’ve gone for ice cream, we’ve gone shopping (more like browsing at all the things we can’t afford) and we’ve gone to the parade on the 4^th. But no trip to the Vineyard was complete without going to the Flying Horses. The kids would beg to go there and it was never soon enough for them, even if we went the first day. When they were really young, we had to go on with them and stand next to them, but as they got older they went on their own. As you go around, you grab rings out of a metal device, one for the people on the inside and one for the people on the outside, and as you get better you can do multiple rings at a time. At the end they put in brass rings and two lucky people get to stay on for a free ride. On one incredible day, both of my kids got the brass ring on the same ride and got to go for a free ride! It is truly amazing to see people of all ages on the carousel, many of whom have been riding it since they were kids, like my wife. Even though you can’t keep the rings, everyone does their best to grab as many as they can. The Vineyard, including the Flying Horses, holds many good memories for me, my wife and our kids.

We didn’t really do vacations when I was growing up, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t have any fun. We had an above-ground pool in the backyard and we used it a lot. That is, except for the year my younger brother and I decided to spray a hornets’ nest with the hose. We thought it was pretty funny when they couldn’t fly and fell to the ground, but it wasn’t very funny for the week or so afterward when you couldn’t go in the backyard without getting attacked. We played games in the pool, had contests to see who could stay underwater the longest and we made whirlpools and floated along on the current. I don’t know how he did it, but my younger brother could float forever. To this day, I’d be in big trouble if my life depended on me floating for a long time. 

We also had a huge tent and my father and older brothers would set it up in the backyard and we’d go “camping”. We’d take our flashlights, sleeping bags and pillows out to our campsite and pretend we were in the middle-of-nowhere. We’d read our Mad magazines or our Archie or Sad Sack comic books, we’d tell jokes and we’d laugh like we had not a care in the world. Because we didn’t; life was good in the wilderness. Unless my older brothers would tell scary stories, then I did have a care. I had a very vivid imagination back then and envisioned things even worse than they talked about. And if one of them happened to slip out without being seen, they would hit the sides of the tent, or put their face up to one of the tent windows with a flashlight eerily lighting their face, or scream and yell right on cue with the story being told. Whatever they did, it had the desired effect of scaring us younger ones. Good thing Mom and Dad were just 50 feet away!

On really hot summer nights, we’d all pile in the car and go for a cool off ride. No, there wasn’t an air conditioner in the car; we just rode with the windows open. Sometimes we just took a little trip around town, sometimes we drove to a beach. No matter where we went, it usually ended with an ice cream for everybody. There’s nothing like an ice cream on a hot night. It was always a race to eat most, if not all, your ice cream before it turned into a melted, runny mess on your hands, arms and clothes. Then it was back into the car for another cool ride and the trip back home, where there was no air conditioning and only a couple of fans. But at least for an hour or two there was some relief.

I enjoy going away on vacation as a family with my wife and kids. I don’t want to think about what it will be like when my daughter and son are on their own and don’t go with us anymore. That will be a sad day for me and I hope it doesn’t happen for a long time, if ever. If it does happen though, I’ll have a wealth of memories from the years we did take some time to get away together. However, in reality it doesn’t really matter whether you’re camping out in your backyard or sitting on a beach miles away from home. As much as I love the Vineyard, I learned a long time ago that it’s not the vacation spot that’s so important, but rather those with whom you’re vacationing.