Vacations created much excitement in our family. I can practically
remember every one we took. The first was a week-end jaunt to Harrison, Arkansas. My younger brother had not become fully toilet-trained, but was sufficiently “toilet-aware” to risk such a journey. We headed north. Lawzee. Believe it or not, none of us, save my dad, had ever seen a mountain. The ones we saw weren’t the Rockies, but we didn’t care. They were sure
something.
Setting a pattern that would last for years, we joined an aunt
and uncle and two cousins on the trip. I can’t remember how my uncle Raymond
got us to quit singing “She’ll be coming ‘round the mountain.” I think it
included a threat to leave my cousin JoAnn and me on the side of the road to be
picked up on the way back.
It proved a memorable trip, with both simple and majestic
wonders. I remember a coin-operated radio in a place called the “Log Cabin Inn.”
For two-bits, you got maybe 30 minutes of music. We listened in awe until the
grownups ran out of quarters. Next day we visited an attraction long-since closed:
Diamond Cave, near Jasper, Arkansas. Oh, it was magnificent! I can still recall
how the guide told us how to differentiate between stalagmites and stalactites.
The wonder. The wonder.
We thus initiated annual vacations. Both my dad and my Uncle ran grocery stores, so we would
leave on Thursdays and return by Sunday. Once a year. That was it. They knew that
such short vacations, with five kids to keep corralled didn’t offer much rest,
but they both agreed that it “beat the hell out of chopping cotton.”
Believing that diversity was a strong foundation-stone of
life, we alternated destinations. One year we would go to Galveston, Texas, and
the next to somewhere in what is now known as the “Redneck Riviera.” There are
still old songs that pop up occasionally … popular at some moment in history,
that bring back an instant memory, sometimes accompanied by the smell of salt air
and the screeching of sea gulls.
As I say, some aspects weren’t as pleasant for my dad as they
were for us. He didn’t particularly like to drive, and he certainly didn’t enjoy
long periods marked by prolonged close contact with bratty children. Further
there were spots along the way, like the passage through Mobile, Alabama—including
its frightening and mocking tunnel—that he knew in his heart were created by
the Dark One to punish him for previous sins. Not a man to be distracted from a
goal, I was always certain that he would not have detoured off our stated route
a half-mile to witness The Second Coming. Thus, I never saw the Vicksburg Civil
War Park until I was a grown man and could take myself there if I chose.
The women let the men have a few beers on these trips. That
took “some of the swelling out” for them. They actually could get pretty funny
at times, especially when they had snuck around and exceeded the quota. As for
the kids, nobody needed to tell us how to have fun. Even the normally demure
and taciturn women donned what I’m sure were considered sexy bathing suites at
the time. Oh, it was glorious.
I can still remember them, though, whenever I wish, and I do often, very often.
