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 Farm in the Country

I was watching a television show last week and there was a reference to a dog being taken to live on a farm out in the country, where he would be able to run around all day with the other dogs. This, of course, was not true. The funny thing about this is, it is the exact story I was told when I was a kid about one of our dogs and I totally bought it, hook, line, and sinker.

I was just a little guy then, I couldn’t have been more than six or seven at the time. I don’t really even remember too much about our dog at the time, other than he was a Shetland Sheep dog, he was getting older, and his name was Tuffy. From what my older brothers told me, he was a great dog. Back then, there was a place called “the Pit” (short for sandpit), which was just outside the woods behind our house and was a bunch of sand piles and large rocks. My brothers would go out in the backyard and say, “To the Pit!” and Tuffy would take off and wait for them at the Pit. As you can imagine, dogs weren’t tied up or kept in the house all day when we were kids.

Somewhere along the line though, Tuffy turned into a dirty dog and started trying to do things with us kids he ought not to have been trying. To top it off, Tuffy tried taking a bite out of anyone that didn’t like his actions, and that was the end of the line. Fortunately, I don’t recall any of this happening. I do remember being told that he was getting the treat of a lifetime, that my parents were going to bring him to a country farm where he could run around and play all day with a bunch of other dogs. I saw that as Dog Heaven. They assured us “Three Little Ones” that Tuffy would be very happy there, that he would have room to run, and he’d have a bunch of dog friends.

I imagined it always being sunny and warm there, with fields of grass to run through from morning to night. I would think about it from time to time and smile to myself, thinking of Tuffy hanging with his new friends, and figuring he wouldn’t even miss us due to all the fun he was having. For years, I believed that Tuffy was just about the luckiest dog in the world. Well, along with the other dogs on the farm.

It wasn’t until I was in about eighth or ninth grade (into my teenage years for those who don’t want to do the math) that I learned that Tuffy had been put to sleep. I was shocked that my loving parents could do such a thing, I was horrified that my older brothers were okay with this, and I was totally embarrassed that I never figured out that there was no farm in the country where dogs go to live out their last years in complete and total bliss. I guess it was one of the last vestiges of childhood that was torn down, the last of my innocence. Old dogs don’t go out gracefully; they go out suddenly and permanently. Maybe this is why I never got a dog as I got older.

Ah, to be able to go back to those days when everything was right with the world. Santa came every Christmas, the Easter Bunny came every Easter, I was going to be a baseball player when I grew up, and old dogs went to live on a farm in the country with a bunch of other dogs. At least in their world it’s sunny and warm all year round.

No Home Phone

Starting this week, for the first time in my life, I will be without something that I never thought I could live without. My wife and I will be cutting the cord and getting rid of our home phone. Maybe at some point when I was very young, we didn’t have a phone, but as far back as I can remember it’s always been there. I can still remember the phone number I had growing up, even though no one in my family has used it in over twenty five years!

Thinking back, it’s like a trip down memory lane, a trip back to a much simpler time. In the old days, there were no cell phones, so you had to have a home phone. Oh, by the way, there was only one Phone Company back then, so you got what they offered and you paid what they told you. There weren’t any cool, sleek phones, just a few different colors. It hung on the wall and you had to dial the numbers on a rotary dial. Remember how long it took to do a 9 or a 0?

There was also no call waiting, so if you called someone and they were on the phone, you got a busy signal. I can tell you it was totally annoying when my friend, Bruce, would ask me to eat dinner at his house and when I tried to call my Mom, the phone was busy – forever! Okay, in all fairness, it was probably only 10 – 15 minutes, but it felt like forever when the food was almost ready and his Mom had already set a place for me at the table.

Which reminds me; we had a 15-minute limit on phone calls. With six of us living at home and everybody wanting to use the phone (except Dad, he really wasn’t much of a phone talker), there had to be some kind of rules. So my parents instituted an unofficial 15-minute time limit. I say unofficial because if no one else wanted to use the phone or no one was expecting a call, you could stay on longer. However, most nights the phone was in use from 7:00 to 10:00. I think we even had another rule that there were no phone calls after 10:00.

The cool thing about our old, on-the-wall phone was that the cord was extra long, so we could go out into the garage and talk in privacy. It really was not fun to be talking to a girl and have my older brothers making kissing noises or repeating what I said in a mocking tone. When my time was up, I’d get the “Say goodnight to Snooky Wookums” thing, or something similarly embarrassing, and they’d wait right there in front of me until I hung up. It’s probably those times (or because I’m like my Dad in some ways) that I really don’t like to talk on the phone today!

Another great memory I have is Mom sitting there doodling away while she was talking on the phone. She’d get on the phone, take a piece of paper or something from the mail, grab a pen, and start drawing. A little while later, she’d have the whole thing filled with designs and patterns. I thought, and still think, that her doodles were pretty cool. It appears she did get some of her mother’s artistic ability after all.

Saying goodbye is usually not easy, and this does feel kind of strange. However, the only calls we get on the home phone these days are telemarketers. Pretty much everybody else calls our cell phone or texts us. So even though there hasn’t been a cord for many years, we’re cutting the metaphorical cord and doing away with the home phone. Goodbye, and thanks for the memories.

Pictures in Time

Last week we had to submit pictures for my son’s high school yearbook, which included his senior picture and a picture from when he was a baby. As usual, we waited until the last day, so we spent the night before going through albums and boxes with an assortment of pictures. As much as it was kind of annoying to have to do that when I could have been getting my beauty rest, it also made me really happy. 

As I was going through the pictures of my kids when they were little, there were a few things that really stood out to me. Foremost, was that both kids were smiling and happy in almost every picture. I’m not just talking about posed, “say cheese” pictures, but also unplanned, unscripted pictures. That is how I remember them; smiling, laughing, playing, just doing the funny, goofy things kids do. Another thing that was quite noticeable was that my kids did a lot together. It was really hard finding a picture of just my son, all by himself. In almost all the pictures of him, my daughter was right there with him, both of them smiling and laughing. Somehow there were also quite a few pictures that included me with the kids, which amazed me since I don’t remember my wife taking all those pictures. However, I’m glad she did, and I was glad to find there were also a number of pictures of my wife with the kids. At least they can’t say we never spent time with them, because we’ve got the proof!

The sad part is that they probably don’t remember many of those times. I know I don’t remember much before first grade. Sure, I remember a few things here and there, but not a whole lot. Even when we’ve broken out old pictures with my family and talked about what was going on when the picture was taken, I either vaguely remember or I don’t remember at all. I’m in the pictures, so I know I was there, but the memories are gone. In one way it’s sad that I can’t remember those times, but in another way it’s nice to hear my older brothers and sisters talk about something that they remember so vividly.  

One of my uncles once took a bunch of pictures at a family party in our backyard when I was just a little guy, maybe about six years old. There were aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers, sisters, parents and grandparents at that party. He had them made into slides and years later he brought them and a projector to our house to show us. As we worked our way through the slides, I realized that one way or another I managed to get into a large percentage of the pictures. Here’s a picture of all the adults standing together as couples – with me lying on the ground, peeking out between someone’s legs. Here’s a picture of all the older kids – with me sticking my goofy face in from the side. Here’s a picture of random people standing around talking, unaware their being photographed at that moment – with me facing the camera with a cheese ball smile a mile wide. Strange, but I have absolutely no recollection of that event.

I’m sure that someday we’ll sit down with the kids, maybe even the grandkids, and look through those pictures and reminisce about that birthday party, or the time that my daughter made a whole snowperson family, or how my son always wore a hat or a visor, or the summer vacations on the Vineyard, or the first day of pre-school or kindergarten or first grade. Or hundreds of other things that my kids barely remember but I happily remember like they were just yesterday.   

Playing Games, Telling Stories and Singing Songs

My wife and I spent the weekend on Martha’s Vineyard and were on our way back to our car on the shuttle bus when a Dad and his kids caught our attention. This man was great with his kids and was fully engaged with them, something you don’t see enough these days. Pretty much from the time the ride started, he was playing games with the kids, especially a young girl who was probably about five-years old. They played thumb wars, they played I Spy, and they played Simon Says (no small feat in a dark vehicle, I must say). However, what truly impressed me was when the little girl asked to play the Quiet Game.

Listening to them brought back a lot of memories from when my kids were younger and we were on the road. We used to play games, tell stories and sing songs when we drove. Obviously, we didn’t play thumb wars, that would be hard (and dangerous) to play while driving a car around town. We did play a lot of I Spy and finding the alphabet on license plates and signs along the way. However, the Quiet Game was not one we played too much. I think it worked the first few times we played and then they caught on to the real reason my wife and I wanted to play. My kids never asked to play the Quiet Game.

Telling stories was always fun for us and the kids. We did it a couple of different ways. Sometimes we took turns telling a story, each one of us getting our own few minutes to weave a stunning narrative. Sometimes, one person would start a story and go on for a few minutes, say “and then…” and the next person would pick up from there. We usually went around the car once or twice, but there were occasions we went around three times if the story wasn’t fizzling out. On longer trips, after telling stories for a while and saying we needed a break, the kids would ask for one more. I’d say okay and let them know it was going to be a short one and then proceed to tell them this amazing tale, “Once upon a time. The end.” There would be howls of protest that it wasn’t even a story and I’d usually give in and tell them one last good one. 

Singing songs was another great way to pass the time in the car. We’d sing songs from the kids’ classes at church, oldies but goodies that everybody knows (B I N G O and Bingo was his name O!), songs from their CDs (yes, even at five or six, they had their own music), and other songs the kids and my wife and I liked. I preferred them singing Beatles’ songs than most of the stuff that was played on the radio. It also helped that my wife and both the kids are musically gifted. Heck, the kids even made up some songs of their own that were pretty good – and they both still write songs today.

As we got close to the parking lot, the little girl yawned and then said to her Dad, “I think I’m going to sleep in the car.” Her brother agreed shortly after and gave a hearty yawn himself. I thought that was a perfect ending to the night. They obviously had had a lot of fun and now they were spent. There were so many times on longer rides that our kids were laughing and singing and suddenly there was silence. One of us would take a peek back and they’d both be out cold, safe and secure, sleeping in a car like only kids can.

I hope that Dad enjoyed his ride home, realizing how special it is that he has a great relationship with his kids and realizing that there will come a day when they won’t think he’s the most awesome Dad in the world, a stage all kids go through. I’m sure he occasionally took a peek back at his sleeping kids just to make sure they were okay, and probably smiled as he thought about when they were babies and how quickly they had grown. I remember those days like it was yesterday, because in some ways it was. It doesn’t take long for them to go from sleeping in the back of the car, to asking if they can use the car to go over a friend’s house. I just hope my now grown kids have as fond memories of their younger years as I do.  

Father's Day Thoughts

Last Sunday was Father’s Day and I desperately wanted to pull out something from my younger days to share with everybody. However, I couldn’t find anything that I wrote as a kid for Father’s Day. I guess that when I was a kid we didn’t do stuff like that for our Dads. It was definitely a different time. Let’s face it, back then most of our fathers were not very engaged with us and our lives. It was mostly the mothers that raised the kids and Dad was only brought in when the heavy artillery was needed. Still, I was hoping to find something.

Then I thought about a poem I wrote for my Dad for Father’s Day a couple of years before he passed away. I looked high and low, and couldn’t find a printed copy. I looked on old 3.5 inch floppy disks (yeah, I still have a few of them) and came up empty. I looked in the attic in some storage boxes and it was not to be found. So, I have nothing to share with you about Father’s Day from when I was kid. However, I can share some things I always think of when I think of my Dad:

•  I always knew when Dad was coming home because I could hear him whistling as he came up the walkway. I don’t know the songs he was whistling, but I’m sure they were classics from his life. That is something that was not passed down to my kids; I can’t imagine going around whistling Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Queen, or even the Beatles.
• Whenever we sang “Let There Be Peace on Earth” at church, it brought tears to Dad’s eyes. When you’ve been in a war and seen things that you just don’t talk about, I guess singing about peace has a little more meaning to you. My son is in chorus at school and when they sang it for a show I, too, had tears in my eyes thinking of my Dad.
• On Sundays, Dad always made breakfast for us – bacon, eggs and toast. It was awesome to wake up after a nice, long, fun Saturday and smell the bacon cooking in the kitchen. Even if most times he overcooked it (unless you like it dry and rock hard), it was awesome to not have to make it myself.
• On Sunday afternoons, Dad always made hamburgers for lunch. He didn’t make little, scrawny, slider-like burgers; he made big, beefy burgers that took two hands to eat. The Burger King Whopper had nothing on Dad’s burgers!
• On Saturday afternoon, Dad would watch Candlepin Bowling, a local bowling show. He really got into it, and when a pin was wobbling he would yell “Get over!”  I tried that once when I was bowling and the people in the next lane did NOT appreciate it.
• Even though we weren’t very well off when I was a kid, my Dad was always willing to serve others and help wherever he could. When he tried to refuse a Thanksgiving turkey one year, we were all a little ticked off. However, now that I’m older I get it – there’s always someone who is in greater need than you and he thought someone else should have gotten it.
• When I wanted to learn how to play Cribbage, Dad patiently taught me, even when I made the same mistakes over and over. He took the time to explain what I could have done that would have been better. I, however, did not have that same patience when my kids were kicking my butt playing Trouble.

Maybe someday I will find a copy of that poem I wrote for my Dad. Even if I don’t, I still have a lot of great memories of him and the many things he taught us growing up. I hope that my kids have fond memories of me when I’m gone. I’m sure they’ll tell their kids how they kicked my butt playing…well, just about every game we played. I also hope they'll remember the good things I taught them.