Thursday, September 1st, 2011
Dallas, Texas
WHAT HAPPENED TO LONG VACATIONS?
Does anyone take serious vacations anymore? In the “good old days,” schools did not start again until the Monday after Labor Day. The last two weeks in August used to be a popular time for families to get away to the beach for a final summer fling. But not anymore. The American family vacation seems to be dying.
In days of old, I always joined in our family excursions at summer’s end. There was no electronic requiem involved. No cell phone rings, no BlackBerry buzzes, and no laptop beeps. It was Lake Michigan in my early years, Lake George, New York in my college days, and from my twenty’s on it was annual summer vacations in Gulf Shores, Alabama.
Back in the 60’s and 70s, there was no high rises on the Gulf Coast, no water parks, and a few local seafood restaurants. Just a lot of single story beach houses with long porches facing the Gulf. There was no local phone service back then, and you had to bring your own drinking water. We brought our sheets and towels from home, because the well water was full of iron and made the wash gray and stiff. No TV and no air conditioning. Continue reading “Jim Brown”