OK, let’s do a little planning. 11 more days ‘til July 4th, 39 days ‘til school starts, 72 days ‘til the first game of the Georgia Bulldogs 2022 season and 74 days ‘til Labor Day. So, the time is NOW. If you still haven’t faced it, now is the time to take a deep breath, shake off your doubts and fear, gather your family together and break the news , “Alright, this is it! We are going on vacation.!” Ah yes, the great American pastime. Pack up everyone’s favorite snacks, electronics, coolest resort wear, stuffed animals and coolers full of beverages to accommodate all age groups and strap the kids in last. Of course there will be heated discussions and fights to break up about who sits where. There will also be minor rebellion about parental authority and endless cries of "when do we get
there?" But eventually all of this works itself out, and you find that you can now crank the car and proceed down the driveway. The odyssey begins !
Kids are amazingly quick to size up any situation and figure what’s best for them. My brother and I would always negotiate terms before a long car trip for seat assignments and safety issues. You didn’t just call out “shotgun”. You planned your strategy like a chess match. My favorite spot for a long trip was what used to be called the packing shelf behind the rear seat and right under the rear glass. Cars nowadays don’t even have the room for that spot, but a 1960 Chevy Impala did, and it was perfect for a nine-year-old. You could curl up and enjoy the panoramic view, and you were also out of range of any disciplinary action from a parent in the front seat. My brother was older and much more scholarly and would usually have brought along some reading material for the trip. So, while he had the entire back seat to study Superman saving the world, I was entertained with the passing sights from my perch on the packing shelf. That 1960 Impala never heard of air conditioning or seatbelts but nevertheless cruised confidently and solidly south on US Highway 1 on our yearly pilgrimage to visit my mother’s family. They lived in a little town called Clermont near Orlando, Florida. The Stuckey’s, Atkinson Pecans, and Howard Johnson’s stores were like lighthouses along the highway welcoming the wide-eyed travelers into the exotic land of Alligator farms and orange groves. That was about it in 1960. Walt Disney hadn’t left California yet, and the rolling hills of central Florida were still thickly covered with orange and grapefruit trees. Silver Springs glass bottom boats, Weeki Wachee Mermaids, the Citrus Tower and the St. Augustine Jail were some of the “big tourist spots” then along with the Daytona and Jacksonville beaches. Orlando was a sleepy, slow moving town. We did get to see some Cuban folks making cigars there. But no one could possibly make up a story about what the next two decades would do to that place.
Those visits were good because we got to see cousins, aunts and an uncle and a grandmother each year and shared their lives for just a little. It was always good to get back home, but families need those times. Especially in the world we live in today. Those experiences are reference points for the story of your life. The stories of the silly things, the special things, the common and uncommon joy of just caring for others are the threads that are passed along and keep us pulled tightly together. So get going, you still have 39 days before everybody has to get back into harness. Yep, gas is expensive, but the memories you could make might just be priceless.
