Do you remember going on family vacations when you were a kid?
It's funny how I can't remember where I put my keys or my phone or what I was supposed to pick up at the store (so when I arrive, I just stand there looking around for some hint) but I can remember being on vacation with my family when I was a kid.
My parents worked several jobs at once to keep us afloat. Neither of them had it easy.
We weren't able to spend much time with our Dad as he worked a day job and a night job.
So when those 10 days in July came around, we were more than excited to be going away as a family knowing we would have our parents endless attention.
They saved up all year so that they could bring us to Burlington, Vermont which is about a 2 hour drive from Montreal where we grew up.
We always stayed at the same hotel - Howard Johnson's - just off the highway. You know how you remember smells? Well I can still smell that lobby. I mean this in a good way, it had a cedar sort of country house smell.
My brothers and me would go with my father to check in because we knew that they gave kids candy at the front desk and we wanted to pile up for the holiday.
He would ask for two sets of keys - one for him and my mother and the other for my older brother Mike to carry just in case we were playing out back and needed to return to the room. We thought it was really cool that we had our own key.
We would settle into our room. We all slept in one because it was too expensive to get two and so it was tight with the rollaways and all of our stuff but we didnt' care - we were family and we were together and that was all that mattered.
This particular Howard Johnson's had a huge back yard with a pool and playground and plenty of empty field space for baseball and Frisbee.
We put on our bathing suits and with our mother trailing behind us, headed for the pool which served as our mainstay throughout the day.
My father joined us later after having bought every newspaper he could find from around the world (journalist) and he would have on his vacation shirt (Hawaiian Punch) and his Montreal Expos Hat and this white stuff on his nose.
My brothers and I would do the typical kid stuff in the pool - wrestle, try and drown one another, cannon balls (the ladies in the shower caps wading around did not like us), Marco polo but the best and our favourite pool activity was when my dad would finally stop reading his papers and come in and join us.
He played this game with us where he would throw us in the air. It went like this:
One of us would stand in the shallow end just near the deep end and my father would go under the water and then come up like a Great White Whale catapulting us into the air. We'd land a few inches away in the deep end and all we wanted to do was go again.
We loved this game mostly because it was quality time with him and because it made us laugh. After a few rounds he would be exhausted and headed back to his chair.
My mother would have a picnic lunch prepared and we'd eat on a blanket under one of the big trees my my evil twin would climb the tree and then when I wasn't looking, jump from the branch he had been perched upon and land on me. Then I would chase him into the hotel down the halls and he would knock on all the doors so that by the time the person opened to see who was there I would be running by while he was way ahead of me.
By 5pm my mother had managed to convince us to come in from outside, shower and get ready to go for dinner. We'd often go to a pizza place nearby that had a juke box and pinball machines and you ordered at the counter and they called your name when your pizza was ready. We thought it was really funny to give the counter person a fake name and then to wait for them to call out "Hemorrhoid Harry" your pizza is ready. Then everyone would look around to see who was going to get the pizza and our father didn't get up given that was not his name so one of us would go and get it and then our parents would tell us it wasn't funny although our mothers cheeks went up when she was telling us it wasn't funny.
Night time would be a movie out or back to the room where we would all argue over what to watch. That was in the days of All in the Family, Happy Days, The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, Sonny & Cher, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Carol Burnett, Welcome back Carter and MASH.
Breakfast was out on the patio - hot chocolate from Howard Johnson's coffee shop adjacent to the hotel, orange juice and Drake's Coffee Cakes (the best).
Sometimes my dad would take us out so my mother could have some peace. He had a friend who owned a fun park about an hour north and we loved going there. There was an indoor rollerskating rink with music and a mirror ball, go carts, bumper cars, bowling and all sorts of carnival games with stuffed animals as prizes. We'd spend the whole day there on an all inclusive pass running from one thing to the next. We ate Pogo's, candy apples, cotton candy, french fries and by the time we were ready to leave it was already dark out and we all had car sickness.
One of the things I remember the most was at night my parents would put us to bed and then they would take a bottle of wine and leave the screen door slightly open while they enjoyed some time alone on the patio. One night they were talking about how they worried that they would not be able to provide for us and send us all to school and give us all the things we wanted and needed and then my mother said, "We'll do whatever we have to to give them a good life. We'll make it work" and then I'm pretty sure they kissed.
My mother always insisted on bringing me for some new clothes. I had mostly worn hand me downs from my brothers - simple stuff like jeans and t-shirts and hoodies and she always felt badly that she was not able to provide me with the latest in dresses, shoes and blouses. So we'd go to one of the discount malls and find a few things for me to wear when the new school year began.
We went into one store and ran into two girls who were in my grade but I was not friendly with because I felt they were rather arrogant and not very nice. They were in Burlington for the day. One of them had an older brother who drove them there with some of his friends and when they found out I was actually on vacation for 10 days in Burlington, they laughed at me and couldn't believe that was my family vacation.
I didn't want my mother to hear - she was at the other end of the store and I didn't want to continue the conversation with those girls so I just walked away. I didn't feel ashamed or embarrassed. I knew how hard my parents had to work to bring us on that vacation and I only hoped that one day I would be able to do the same for my kids.
That was over 30 years ago. I can still smell the lobby and see the pool and the playground. I can still hear my parents having that conversation out on the patio and I can tell you that they followed through with that promise and gave my brothers and me everything we "needed". As for what we "wanted", well they informed each of us when we entered grade 7 that it was time to go and get a job. So we delivered papers (The Montreal Star) and worked in the public parks maintaining the fields and turning on and off the lights and they sent us all to University and we all graduated and went on to careers of our own.
My parents still returned to Burlington each summer for a week or so and only stopped about 2 years ago when health issues got in the way.
My brother has since returned with both of his sons and caught up with Dan who was one of the managers there and became friends with our family over the years. My nephews went swimming in the pool and played baseball on the field and tried to go to the fun park but it was gone.
I assumed my brother was going to bring them to the same pizza place we had eaten at when in Burlington so I spoke to my nephews and laid out the "plan". They asked my brother for the money so they could go up and order the pizza themselves and when it came time for the counter person to call out a name, the whole restaurant turned to look and see who "I'vegotanitch" was and my brother proudly stood up and went to get the pizza and according to my nephews, they saw his cheeks rise.
I cherish the memories of family vacations and I love and respect my parents for all that they sacrificed and worked so hard for so that my brothers and me could have a better life. I think that sometimes we get so caught up in all that life throws at us that we forget to stand back and figure out what really matters and what really matters is spending time together as a family; away from everything and everyone while we are all still here together.
Once that dynamic changes and someone is no longer around, there is no going backward and the past is just a memory that you pray you will never forget.
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