Daze of Summer

You can tell it’s officially summer by how your children seem a bit lost and are looking for something to keep them occupied. When I was growing up and summer vacation was upon us, I don’t recall complaining to my parents that there was nothing to do and that I was bored. Or said another way, if I complained that I had nothing to do, they would find something for me to do, so I always elected to get out of the house as soon as I could and dutifully return when the street lights came on.

A typical summer vacation day began with my friends and me sitting around saying “what do you want to do? I dunno, what do you want to do?” – And on an on it went until someone would suggest going to someone else’s house to ask their opinion. Somehow though, by the end of the day, it had been filled with swimming, baseball and an assortment of other games plus the mandatory hanging out at the drug store making the coke phosphate last as long as possible. It was fun and so simple that the joy of being with your buds and all of the laughter was all you could think about until the next day. And at the end of each of those days my parents would ask what we did all day and of course the answer was “nothing, we just hung around”. After a week or two into summer vacation my parents quit asking.

I’m really excited this summer because my boys are working and/or going to summer school. No boredom, no hanging around the house looking lost. And since we’ve already had a vacation, the next few months will be pretty much up to chance. Yes they have the beach any time they want but there is also a visit planned by their cousin some time in July. I tend to let it be what it is and not try to force any events or anything on the guys. However when I was growing up my parents had their vacations planned to include all of us no matter what.

One of the favorite, although I don’t know why, thing for my family to do was to go to the lake. Growing up in Ohio on Lake Erie meant we could not go to that lake because it was polluted. You could boat on it and even water ski on the lake but if you fell in, your body would decompose immediately and be eaten by the resident garbage fish of the lake – the carp.
We chose instead to go to Michigan and find a clean lake where we could splash and swim and hang out all day. The problem was that everyone else wanted to go to the same lake. To avoid the hassles of too many people and not enough parking or picnic table space, my dad would proclaim an early rising day. He would instruct the six or seven of us kids to be ready to leave at 10 a.m. No later or we would not get a good spot.

For some reason, we never responded quite like dad had envisioned and usually we were an hour or two late. Once at the lake we would find ourselves stuck at the most distant parking place from anything. My dad would be muttering under his breath as he finally wedged the car into a spot that required a can opener to enter. He reminded everyone to carry some piece of the 20 ton baggage we had brought so that it would be done in just one trip. But no sooner had he placed the car in park and turned off the engine, did all of us scamper to the beach with only our towel in tow. Mom of course had to chase after the kids and was gone in a flash.

Dad would emerge from the car facing the already hot and humid afternoon sun and light up a cigarette. He’d lean against the car and scope out the terrain to see where he should set camp. In a trait I inherited from my father he would strap every piece of stuff to himself in order to make just one (death defying) trip. This included an 80 pound bag of charcoal, a cooler full of ice and whatever and an assortment of towels, blankets, cups and paper plates.

Loaded like a pack mule, he would plod step by step to the farthest spot from the lake in a place where one could not even see the water from the rickety, hole-filled, picnic table which no one else wanted. And just about the time that he had unloaded his load and sat down, the kids would come running back asking for lunch. And dad would simply ask how many wanted hotdogs and how many wanted hamburgers. And this was his vacation – a vacation filled with a dazed joy not from what he did for himself but what he let us do. Hot dog please –two!

From The Book of Szen