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. 

A Box of Nothing

As I went past the kitchenette area where I work, I noticed a box on one of the tables, the kind of box that looks like it holds some kind of treat. It could be cookies, or cake, it doesn’t really matter at 2:00 in the afternoon when something sweet would hit the spot. I put on the brakes and made a quick left into the kitchenette to get something before it was all gone. Yes, it was a bakery box!

I took one last look around to make sure no one was watching, like I was doing something wrong (it must be some kind of learned response from my younger years), opened the box, and…it was empty. Empty! Unless you count a few measly crumbs in the corners of the box, it was empty. What a letdown. I thought I was going to get at least a little sugar energy to help me through the afternoon, even if it was just half a cookie or pastry, or even a sliver of a cake or a pie. I felt like the box was taunting me, laughing at me as I walked away.

Why do people leave an empty treat box sitting on the kitchenette table like that? It’s such a tease and such a disappointment. One minute your imagining yourself eating a piece of chocolate cake, or munching a chocolate chip cookie, or being lucky enough to find even a quarter of a cinnamon bun, and the next you get air. A handful of nothing is what you end up with. I guess if you’re desperate, you eat the crumbs, but I wasn’t. Truth be told, I have too much pride to do that anyway.

I had lots of experience with finding something empty growing up in a big family. I cannot even tell you how many times I came into the house to get a cold drink of water, opened the freezer, and found one ice cube in the multiple trays. I’d take the one ice cube left in the top tray, and go to get another out of the next tray, only to find it empty. Someone actually left an empty ice cube tray in the freezer! If I complained to Mom or Dad about it, they told me it was wrong for someone to do that, but could I fill up both trays so the next guy didn’t get the same problem.

For some reason, my parents insisted on buying the ice cream that has vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry in the same package. None of us really liked strawberry, so when you went to get some cold, refreshing goodness in the summer, the vanilla and chocolate were totally gone, like they were never even there. I know, you’re thinking that the container wasn’t empty, that there was still some ice cream left, however, as far as we were concerned it was empty. None of us kids were going to eat the strawberry ice cream.

Mom also liked to get us the variety pack of cereal with the small boxes, which was great for the first week and maybe the second week. After that the only cereal left was Raisin Bran. I don’t know any kid that would take Raisin Bran over Frosted Flakes, or Sugar Pops, or any other sugar-laden cereal. The Raisin Bran would sit in the cabinet getting stale, unless one of us was desperate enough to take it and pick out all the raisins, throw a couple of spoonsful of sugar on it, maybe some sliced banana, pour in some milk, and only then eat it. That’s how you start your day with a good breakfast!

I could go on. There were 99.99% empty potato chip bags; containers of milk, Zarex, or soda with, at most, a mouthful of liquid left; toilet paper rolls with one square left on them and paper towel rolls with no sheets left on them; boxes of holiday chocolates with the only leftovers the kind that old ladies like (my apologies to all the Grandmothers out there). Letdowns one and all.

Over time, though, these letdowns have faded into the background because over time I’ve learned what is more important, that being family. Tasty treats, ice cream, ice cubes, even toilet paper, won’t always be there, but I know my family will.

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.

Snack Time

Another post in a series on Famous Family Sayings

My son brings back memories of when I was a teen when I see him eating a meal and an hour later being hungry again. There were times I felt like a bottomless pit when it came to food. I just couldn’t get enough. When you’re young, not only can you do extra meals, it’s almost required.

It wasn’t that we weren’t fed at my house when I was growing up. Somehow we always had plenty of food, at least as far as I can remember. It might not have been exactly what we wanted, but we never went without food on the table. In between meals, we had to ask Mom if we could have something to eat, and when we did the answer we got was usually the same: “You can have a piece of fruit, a piece of bread with butter, some saltines, or a glass of milk.” Not that there’s anything wrong with any of those choices, but I always hoping Mom would say something like, “You can have a handful of cookies, some brownies, a big piece of cake, or a big bowl of ice cream.” That never happened.

We had cookies or brownies for a snack after school sometimes, and we did have ice cream or cake for dessert after dinner sometimes, but those weren’t things we were allowed to have in that time between the after school snack and dinner, or on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. No, during those times when I was a growing boy and my stomach would rumble a half hour after eating, I could have “a piece of fruit, a piece of bread with butter, some saltines, or a glass of milk.” My older brothers also taught me to sprinkle some sugar on the bread and butter to liven it up a bit, and though the thought of eating that now gives me the shivers, it was great back then. I can imagine what nutritionists today would say about that – butter AND sugar together on a piece of white bread. Mom might get arrested for child abuse.

However, for years we got the same mantra, “You can have a piece of fruit, a piece of bread with butter, some saltines, or a glass of milk.” Throw a little peanut butter on some saltines, pair it with a glass of milk, and you have a great snack. I liked fruit, but when you’re a kid and you want some cookies or a brownie, a banana pales in comparison. Let’s face it, 99 out of 100 kids would choose cookies, brownies or cake and ice cream over apples, oranges and bananas any day. I don’t need to get a grant from the National Foundation for Eats to do a scientific study to figure that one out. None of my brothers or sisters - or me - ever said, “Yes, fruit! I love it! I’d take this over brownies any day!” That absolutely never happened. I can tell you, however, that we went through a lot of milk, bread, butter, peanut butter, saltines and fruit back then due to Mom's mantra on snacks. 

Fast forward to when I had kids. When they asked for something to eat in between meals what did I tell them? They could have whatever they want? No, I told them, “You can have a piece of fruit, a piece of bread with butter, some yogurt, or a glass of milk.” Okay, so it’s not exactly the same, but it’s close enough. As for myself, I still eat a lot of fruit today and I love to have a piece of bread with butter when we make our own bread and it’s still warm, fresh out of the bread maker.

They say that old habits never die, and I think that was meant in a negative way for bad habits. However, sometimes good habits don't die either, like having "a piece of fruit, a piece of bread with butter, some saltines, or a glass of milk" for a snack. And as you can see, Famous Family Sayings never die either.

The Ice Cream Man

As we’re coming down to the end of the summer, something I realized I haven’t seen this year is ice cream trucks. We used to have multiple ice cream or frozen lemonade trucks roll though our neighborhood in the summer, but this year I haven’t seen one. I also haven’t seen them driving along the streets in my area. It would be really sad to think that ice cream trucks have gone the way of the dinosaur.

I understand that the selection of music they play as they try to entice you to buy a cold treat is pretty atrocious, and it’s even worse when they have an annoying bell ringing. It’s also annoying when they come to your neighborhood right before dinner, but I suppose they can’t hit every neighborhood just right. However, it’s just not summer without an ice cream truck riding around your streets, calling out to you, telling you that relief and refreshment are right here. Even if you don’t buy any, it’s just not the same.

It was a rare treat when we got anything from the ice cream man when I was a kid. In fairness to my parents, we often had something in the freezer – a couple of flavors of ice cream, Popsicles or Fudgesicles. We often had some ice cream cones, too. Despite all that, when most of your friends were getting something from the ice cream man, getting something from the freezer just wasn’t the same. So it was a grand time when Mom actually gave us the money to get something from the ice cream man, even if it was the cheapest item from the truck.

We had some ways around the no-ice-cream-from-the-ice-cream-man problem. One was having friends who always seemed to have money in their pocket. Not that they would get me an ice cream every day, but they got me one sometimes or they would share theirs with me. A friend willing to share his ice cream on a hot summer day was a good friend indeed. Another was finding some change, either on the street, or under the cushions of the couch, or left lying around on a countertop. Sure, you had to save it up until you had enough, but that made the purchase that much sweeter when you finally could afford a Cannonball. There’s nothing like a rock hard piece of gum after eating an ice cream.

One year, my younger brother, a couple of friends and I asked the ice cream man if we could have an ice cream or two…for free. Of course, he laughed at us, but he held out some hope. He told us if we followed him until the end of his route, he would give us a couple of crushed ice creams to share between us, because he couldn’t sell them anyway. Where was the end of his route? Was a crushed ice cream even eatable? We didn’t know and we didn’t care, we were going to follow him on our bikes and find out. 

Ah, but here’s something we didn’t count on. The ice cream man’s route was actually quite long for kids our age, and on top of that he made a lot of stops, so it took what seemed like hours to reach the end. Looking back, he probably thought that we’d abandon the quest because of a) the heat, b) the distance, c) the time, or d) all of the above. I remember that a couple people dropped out and there were only two of us left at the end, both of us hot, sweaty and tired. For our efforts, we each got a squashed, partially freezer burned – but very cold – Chocolate Eclair ice cream! I do believe that was the best one I ever had, better than the ones I actually paid for over the years. Maybe it was that we took the challenge and actually made it to the end, maybe it was the way the ice cream man laughed at us at first, most likely it was because it was the only way I was going to get something better than a Popsicle, but I savored that ice cream like it was the last one I would ever have.

The ice cream man let us do that a couple more times, but then word got out and there were a bunch of kids following him around. In addition to being a traffic hazard, no one was buying anything from him, so he had to shut down the operation. Once toward the end of the summer, he pulled over and gave us a couple of crushed ice creams to share, telling us not to tell anyone else. One last treat to remember the summer by and he was gone, just like the free ice creams. The next summer, we had a different guy doing the ice cream truck in our neighborhood and he wasn’t the same. There were no freebies for anybody from that guy.  

Hopefully, this is not another childhood ritual that is gone for good. I hope next summer the ice cream man comes through our neighborhood with his annoying music playing and his overpriced treats up for grabs to anybody who has enough spare change. I might just go out there and buy something from him, like a Cannonball or a nice Chocolate Eclair. Who knows, maybe he’ll even have some crushed ones he’d be willing to part with for next to nothing. I’d be willing to take the discount as long as I don’t have to follow him to the end of his route.

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.

Take All You Want, But Eat All You Take

First in an occasional series on Famous Family Sayings

I’ve noticed lately that I don’t each as much as I used to. Maybe it’s because I subconsciously hear some of the words from the Pink Floyd song “Dogs”: And it's too late to lose the weight you used to need to throw around. Or maybe it’s because things just don’t taste the same to me anymore. A lot of food just tastes bland to me. Can you lose taste buds as you get older? I don’t know, but it seems like I am. The other night we had something with dinner and my wife and son both said it tasted very salty. However, to me it didn’t taste salty at all. Not a bit, which is kind of scary.

Or maybe it’s because as a kid I had it drilled into my head to “Take all you want, but eat all you take.” That was a phrase we heard a lot at my house growing up. My parents hated to waste food. Heck, when you’re paying as much as they did for food every week for nine kids, you don’t want to be throwing it away. So they had a rule: you can take as much food as you wanted, but you had to eat it all. If you asked how much spaghetti you could take, the answer was “Take all you want, but eat all you take.” If you asked if you could have two burgers, the answer was “Take all you want, but eat all you take.” If you asked how many cookies you could have, the answer was “Three.” As much as we tried, the cookie answer was never “Take all you want, but eat all you take.” Nor was it for M&M’s, brownies or ice cream. It was for liver and onions, but we never took Mom and Dad up on that one. 

Seems pretty simple, but in the competitive world of dinner time in a large family it wasn’t as cut and dry as you’d think. If you took only a small amount of food to make sure you could eat it all, when you went back for more there might not be any left. Mom usually made enough for everyone plus a little more, but there were times there was just enough for everybody. If you went conservative, someone else could take the rest of what you should have taken the first time. If you took a large portion to make sure you got your share and couldn’t finish it, somehow Dad always knew. Even if you tried to cover it up or rush past him to get the dishes to the sink, he knew. On those occasions you’d get the corollary to “Take all you want, but eat all you take.” That is, “Your eyes were bigger than your stomach.”

When one of my parents said it, I would always picture my face with these huge eyes that took up my whole face, alien like. Knowing my younger self, I probably went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror, just to make sure I didn’t have crazy eyes. We didn’t get punished for taking too much; Dad just let us know that it was not alright. There was something about disappointing him that made me not take too much. Which is why if “Your eyes were bigger than your stomach.” was a sarcastic comment from one of my siblings, it was like rubbing salt in the wound. I not only felt like I disappointed my parents, I had to take a ribbing on top of it.

As for eating today I take all I want, but I do eat all I take. Like my parents, I don’t like to waste food either. Food costs way too much today to throw it away. Besides, every time I look in the mirror these days, I can see that there’s absolutely no possible way that my eyes could be bigger than my stomach.  

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.