Vacation 2016

I was on vacation a couple weeks back and went to my favorite place, Martha’s Vineyard. I enjoyed spending time with my wife and daughter, my in-laws, and a few cousins, aunts and uncles. Unfortunately, my son couldn’t make it due to his work schedule and I missed having him there with us. Despite him not being with us, it was a great week and brought back some memories for me.

Coming over to the island on the ferry, there were a lot of families with young kids and I couldn’t help but think back to when my kids were little and we made the trek over. Both my kids loved being on the boat and we’d either be outside or right next to a window. We’d watch the seagulls floating on the air, keeping pace with the boat and swooping in and grabbing a snack from a passenger’s outstretched hand. We’d talk about what we were going to do, which always included the beach, ice cream, and The Flying Horses. Those were some great times.

My wife and I walked up town our first evening there and got an ice cream. There’s nothing like an ice cream on a summer day. It made me think of my childhood and how special a treat it was to pile all the kids in the car, go for a cool off ride, and get an ice cream at the end. Even if our hands and arms were sticky with melted ice cream, it was worth the two hours or so of cooling off before we went back to the house where the only air conditioning was open windows and a big blue fan. Those were also some great times.

As I sat waiting for the fireworks to start on the 4^th of July, I was like a little kid, sitting and fidgeting, wondering why it was taking so long to start. When I was a kid, the town had our fireworks at the Little League fields. We’d walk up as a family, set out a blanket and wait what seemed like an eternity, and finally get to see them. It always seemed like it was too short a time for how long we waited. At some point, they stopped shooting off the fireworks in our town, probably realizing that it wasn’t safe enough where they were doing it. Those were some great times, too.

For the most part, I spent the week without shoes on. As soon as I got to the house, I pulled off the sneakers and socks and just let my feet breathe. It felt so good to go outside and feel the grass between my toes and be in direct contact with the ground. I had to put something on my feet to walk places, but that was it. It reminded me of being a kid and fighting with Mom because she wanted us to always have something on our feet and we didn’t want to. Running around in the yard, why would we need sneakers on? Playing wiffle ball in the yard, who needs sneakers? I knew I could run faster with bare feet. Just sitting around in the shade in our front yard and reading comic books certainly didn’t require something on our feet. Maybe Mom just hated having to clean our dirty feet after a fun day. Those were some really great times.

Vacation is over and it’s back to the real world, but I’ve been trying to go barefoot a little more than I was. I’m going to enjoy it as long as I can because in a few months we’ll have to be wearing socks and shoes, or sneakers, or (gasp) boots. By then my week in paradise will be but a distant memory, but I’ll have some happy feet. And some more great memories. 

Back From Vacation

I was on vacation last week with some of my wife’s family and they have younger children in the 6 – 9 years old range. It’s been a while since I’ve had to deal with kids that age, as my kids are now 17 and 20. It didn’t take me long to realize there are some major differences between my kids and the others.

The first difference was being woken up by kids at 6:00 in the morning. At that early hour, they are up and ready to go. You’re still sleeping? Not for long! They tried to stay quiet, but after about ten minutes of progressively louder whispering they started talking in their regular, middle-of-the-day voices. They obviously didn’t get the memo that it is alright to sleep past the normal time they get up for school. I usually get up at 6:00 AM for work, but I’d be very content to sleep past that time for a week or two. So I lose a few hours of the day by sleeping in, but who cares? I mean, it’s VACATION! My son could sleep until 10:00 or 11:00 (maybe even noon) and not feel bad about it. Of course, he’s not going to bed at 8:00 – 9:00 PM either, so I guess there is a tradeoff there.

The next difference is that younger kids go in and out of the house about a thousand times a day. And they slam the door every time! Not long after eating breakfast they are out to ride their bikes (slam!). After a few minutes one of them needs a drink of water, so he or she comes back in (slam!). Guzzle down that water and it’s time to get back outside like there’s a 30-second time limit on the break (slam!). Then someone realizes that someone else just went in for water, so they come in to get a drink, too (slam!). Repeat this process for every kid (slam!) multiple times (slam, slam, slam!) and…well, you get the picture. My kids either stay in the house, or when they go out there’s a quiet click as the door closes and we don’t see them or hear them for two or three hours. When they come back they quietly close the door. Ah, that’s nice.

The last difference is that younger kids get bored during the day. What? Bored? Did I mention that it’s VACATION? I guess that having fun for hours at a time gets old pretty quick for younger kids. You can only ride your bike, play games, watch movies, go to the beach and goof around for so long, and then it gets monotonous. Throw in breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks in between, and it seems like a pretty good day to me. I have a remedy for the boredom: sleep later and there won’t be as many hours to fill! That would take care of a couple of issues at the same time. We’d all be able to sleep later and the kids wouldn’t be so bored.

Now I don’t want it to sound like it was all bad or negative, because it wasn’t. It was actually a really great week. I had fun with the kids at the beach and I love to listen to them as they tell me about things from their perspective.  I got to spend some time with both my own kids, which doesn’t happen as much as I’d like these days. I got to spend some time with my in-laws, both of whom are kind, generous and entertaining. Last, but not least important, my wife and I got to spend a lot of time together, without the usual stuff that gets in the way at home, like work and schedules. You can’t beat that.

The week flew by and it wasn’t long before I was back to the real world. It’s at times like those that I sometimes wish I was still a kid, where vacation is not just a week or two, but the whole summer, and where I’d have so much time in the day to do whatever I wanted that I’d get bored. I’d just have to remember to close the door quietly on my way out.

Spring Ahead

This last week has been one of the most wonderful weeks I’ve had in months. We have turned the corner from winter to spring, and spring is breaking out everywhere. The daytime temperatures are well above freezing and when the wind isn’t blowing it is actually quite pleasant outside. The trees are starting to bud, the grass has turned ever so slightly greener and flowers are starting to pop up in people’s yards. We’re even starting to reap some benefits from Daylight Saving Time, with the hours of sunlight getting longer.

One thing that happened last week is one of my all-time favorite spring rituals. I had to run out to the store for something and when I came back I heard the sound that tells me it is truly spring – peepers! No, not perverts looking in people’s windows, but those little critters that create a symphony of sound every spring. Until I hear those guys it isn’t spring for me. It doesn’t matter the date or if spring has officially arrived, if I don’t hear those peepers, it’s still winter. After a long, cold winter like we had this year, I could listen to the peepers for hours. It is one of the sounds that truly make me happy every year. I bet when I’m 90 I’ll still love to hear the peepers – that is if I can still hear then!

Another day we had a fairly heavy downpour just before I left for work and it was still raining a little as I drove home. Then, just as abruptly as spring showers start, the rain stopped and the sun came out. In front of me, looming over the highway was a very bright and colorful rainbow. It looked incredible and I kept taking peeks at it as I made my way home. Maybe it’s hokey, but there’s something comforting about seeing a rainbow after heavy rain. It makes me feel like everything is going to be okay.

To top it all off, baseball started last week! I may not be into baseball as much I used to be, but when the season begins it tells me that better things are coming – warmer weather, longer days, being outside more, cookouts, vacations, the beach! Sure, it’s going to be a while before we can do some of these things, like go to the beach, but those wonderful days are coming. There’s nothing like watching a ball game on a lazy Saturday or Sunday afternoon in the summer, sipping a cold drink and relaxing. There are lots of good memories there.

One of the things I used to love to do while watching a game as a kid was to get out my baseball cards and put them in order of the lineup for both teams. Then when the guy came up to hit, I’d look at his picture and check out his stats on the back of the card. Just so you get the complete picture, I had full sets of Topps cards from 1968 – 1975; some in doubles, some in triples, so needless to say I had a lot of cards. How did I get all those cards when I didn’t have the money to buy them? I started out small with just a few packs and I used the doubles and triples to flip cards at recess and got more. Remember that horrible cardboard-like bubblegum that came with the cards? Dentists throughout the U.S. loved that stuff.  Anyway, my friend across the street (the one I almost “killed with kindness”) was always getting packs of cards and when a card he needed was one I had, I’d trade the one card for four or five of his doubles. By the end of the year, not only did he have a full set, I had a full set, too!  

Before I was able to go to a Red Sox game at Fenway Park, I still managed to have a front row box seat to a game. Yup, I got a box big enough to sit in, got my cards and plopped the box down in front of the TV. Voila, box seats in the front row! Dad was willing to play along with my little game for a while and let me sit in the box and watch the game. However, when I asked about hot dogs that was probably pushing it a little too far. Nevertheless, I did enjoy pretending I was at Fenway watching the game live and in color. We didn’t have a color TV yet, so I really was pretending. Yes, those were good times.

I’m looking forward to many more wonderful days in the months ahead. Spring is here and like all the trees and flowers, I feel myself coming back to life. I’ll enjoy the warm sun on my face, having a burger from the grill and going to the beach. I may even enjoy a Red Sox game or two. Just not sitting in a box – I don’t have one big enough to fit me.    

Feeling the Heat

We’ve had some really hot weather here in the Northeast lately and I have to say I just can’t take the heat like I used to. I feel like I’m always hot when it’s not even that hot outside, so lately I feel like I’ve been melting. I’m hot at work, I’m hot at home and I’m hot outside. Constant sweating makes me a dull boy. I get grumpy, I get edgy, I need to change my clothes twice a day. Well, not really, I just feel like I should change them a couple times a day. The deodorant just isn’t doing its job these days.

I thought as you get older, you’re supposed to get colder. I see plenty of elderly people walking around in 90 degree heat wearing flannel shirts, sweaters and sweatshirts, and wearing pants. The amazing part is they don’t even look warm, forget about hot. I’m in shorts and a tee shirt and I’m sweating. Not that I want to get older too fast, but I actually kind of look forward to the day I need a second layer in the summer. Heck, it would be nice to just not sweat for a few days. You’re probably thinking, well what about the winter when it’s 20 degrees and the wind is howling? If I’m outside, sure, it IS cold. But if I’m inside, I’m probably hot. This is how it works: if most people are feeling comfortable, I’m hot; if most people are cold, I’m feeling comfortable.

When I was growing up, we didn’t have any air conditioners. We had a couple of fans, but that was it. I remember we had a big blue fan that we put near the front door to create a breeze. When it was on high, it put out a lot of wind and it did actually cool down the living room. It was fun to stand in front of it and talk into it, because it made your voice choppy and sounded cool. Of course, after about 30 seconds of that we were told to get out from in front of it because we were blocking all the cool air. It was also pretty annoying to everyone in the room who wasn’t talking into it, but that was part of the fun. Singing into it was double the fun.

I think we tried putting the fan in the hallway where all the bedrooms were in the hope that it would work as well as in the living room, but it didn’t. Unless we could have made the air bend, there was no way to get the breeze into three different rooms. Even being at the end of the bed closest to the hallway didn’t work. Kids being kids, we still somehow managed to get a good night’s sleep despite the heat. It was so awesome to be lying in bed, windows wide open, listening to the crickets, and feel a breeze, however small or brief it was.

To help alleviate the heat, sometimes we’d go for “cool off rides”. We didn’t have air conditioners in the cars either, but when you drove with all the windows all the way down, it was a nice breeze. Sometimes we just drove around for a while, maybe even on the highway for a short time. Going 60 miles per hour with our heads hanging out the windows was not a pretty sight, but it sure did cool us down. Sometimes we went to the beach and sat on the sea wall or on a bench and enjoyed the breeze off the water. If we were really lucky, the ride included a stop for an ice cream cone. There was nothing like a Dairy Queen ice cream cone, the ice cream dipped into the chocolate that hardened up on the outside. There was always the delicate balance of taking your time to savor the cold treat without taking too long and having a melting mess running down your hand and onto your arm all the way up to your elbow. Hot and sticky – not a good combination.      

That’s about how I’ve felt lately; like a hot, sticky, melting mess. Maybe I should go for a “cool off ride” and go to the beach or get an ice cream. That is, after I change out of my sweaty, smelly clothes.

The Kiss Mommy Incident

A coworker of mine had their birthday last week and a couple of other people who are older than him were giving him some good natured ribbing about getting older. All three of the people involved are older than me, by two, three and five years. They were telling him that in a couple more years he could start getting the senior discount, which he was insisting was not something that he had any intention of using. His feeling was that even when he could take the discount, he would not. The oldest of the group told him that was how she felt, too, until she got to the age where you can get the senior discount. Now she takes the discount any time she can.

Being the type of guy that I am, I put in my two cents worth that I will definitely take the senior discount when I’m eligible. Why wouldn’t you take it? Because of pride, not wanting people to know you’re getting older? Hey, I know that I look older, so I’m sure others can see it, too. Besides, I’ll gladly take a 10% discount just because I’m 55 years old. It’s not like you have to do something to get the discount. What if they made you do 25 pushups to get it? Or worse, made it like a field sobriety test and made you close your eyes, tilt your head back and touch your nose, or recite the alphabet backwards, or walk along a painted line by putting one foot in front of another, heel to toe. You don’t pass the tests, you don’t get the discount. I lose my balance drying off after a shower at times, what’s it going to be like in 10 or 20 years? I think there would be a lot of people not getting the discount, me included.

A moment of pride when I was about 12 years old is the stuff of legend in my family and is still talked about today. You see, we didn’t go to the beach much when I was a kid, probably having to do with packing all of us kids into the car along with blankets, towels and a cooler, and then driving 45 – 60 minutes to the beach with no air conditioning. The are-we-almost-there-yets would have started after about ten minutes and driven Dad crazy. But one fine summer day, the neighbors across the street offered to take us “three little ones” to the beach with them. We all quickly accepted, got ready to go and that’s when the trouble started.

My sister kissed Mom goodbye and started across the street followed by my younger brother, who did the same. I was at that age where I thought I was too cool to kiss her goodbye so I was trying to get out the door without doing it. However, Mom was having no part of that and insisted that I kiss her goodbye. My three older brothers, teenagers at the time, just happened to be there and starting giving me a hard time and saying “Kiss Mommy” in high pitched voices. My pride kicked in and I refused to kiss Mom goodbye and she reiterated that I couldn’t go without doing it. In the meantime, my older brothers kept up the “Kiss Mommy” chant, which was getting louder as the situation started to spin out of control. 

One of them even started giving a play-by-play of what was happening across the street at the neighbor’s house, looking back and forth from the window to me. It went something like this (the names have been omitted to protect the guilty):

Brother #1: They’re coming out of their house.

Brother #2 and #3: Kiss Mommy! Kiss Mommy!

Brother #1: They’re putting their stuff in the car.

Brother #2 and #3: Kiss Mommy! Kiss Mommy!

Brother #1: They’re getting in the car!

Brother #2 and #3: Kiss Mommy! Kiss Mommy!

Brother #1: They’re backing out of the driveway!

Brother #2 and #3: KISS MOMMY! KISS MOMMY!

Brother #1: They’re about to go. LAST CHANCE!

Brother #1, #2 and #3: KISS MOMMY! KISS MOMMY!

Mom looked at me, waiting. I looked at her and at my three older brothers with their big, goofy smiles and with one last prideful stand I said I wouldn’t do it (meaning kiss her goodbye). Then, seeming like the only sound in the whole neighborhood was that of their car accelerating up the street, the neighbors, my younger brother and my sister were off to the beach, while I stayed home. And all because I was too stubborn to kiss my mother goodbye. I don’t really remember much about the rest of that day, but I’m sure the two who went to the beach had a much better day than I did, and I’m sure that the three older brothers had a better day than I did, too.

Sure, we joke about it now, but I learned a good lesson that day. I missed a fun day at the beach because I let my pride stop me from doing something simple – kissing my Mom goodbye – because of what I perceived others might think. So when I’m 55 and can get a senior discount, I’m not going to let what others might possibly think about me stop me. No sir, I’m taking that discount. That is, unless they make me recite the alphabet backwards while closing my eyes, tilting my head back and touching my nose.      

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.