Do You Remember Family Vacations?

My goodness how the world has changed. Consider the humble family vacation for instance back in the day. In the post-war years and the growth of America at the time, there was such an atmosphere of freedom – to go anywhere we wanted when we wanted. The American highway was ours for the taking. The ol’ man had worked hard, summer was arriving, and it was time to enjoy our freedom.

Eisenhower’s growing interstate highway system, Disneyland – and Disney East known as Disney World in hot sticky Central Florida. California here we came! The Poconos! Wild and wonderful West Virginia. Aspen! Seattle’s new Space Needle! A host of amusement attractions across the country.

Seems every region had some sort of amusement attraction. We had ours not far away in the D.C. area – mostly in Virginia. In the Southeast there was the Great Smokeys and Six Flags. In the Mid-Atlantic we had a host of huge amusement parks – most of which are gone today. There were literally hundreds of thousands of entertainment venues everywhere. California and Texas had the majority of them. St. Louis and Kansas City had the Ozarks. Chicago had seemingly dozens of amusement attractions. New York had the World’s Fair.

Regardless of where the parents decided to take you, most trips involved a lengthy ride in the “Are we there yet?” family car – often hundreds, sometimes thousands of miles away. Air conditioning in a car was considered a luxury in those days. We sat in the back seat and roasted (and perspired) in the summer sun at 65 mph. If we acted up, there was the dreaded roadside spanking and the constant “If I have to pull this car over!” and “I’m going to get my belt!” to keep us in line. Failing that, the ol’ man could clock all of us with one swipe.

I was never jealous of my cousin’s summer vacations nor those home movies at Thanksgiving and Christmastime. I just couldn’t relate to them. We never took summer vacations. One, we could not afford them. Two, my father never would have been up for one. He was a homebody who enjoyed his mystery novels and watching the “O’s” play on a portable Hitachi 19-inch TV with a can of Bud’ in his hand.

Summer vacations were something we watched others take. They’d head off in their Chevy station wagons and return tanned and blonde from the sun right before it was time to go back to school. At times, I wondered what I’d missed growing up.

I found myself content with playing in the yard, cruising the neighborhood on my bike, and retreating to my room in a world of imagination.

How did you spend your summer vacations?