Ah, vacation time. I inhaled the crisp air cascading off the mountains last week. The breezes floated through tall evergreens, making a gentle sound, like hands folding a blanket. I could hear wildlife moving on the ground, calling out to each other in trees, and then stillness. Blessed stillness. The great value in vacation is its break from pattern, a moment to hear ... nothing.
I came from a family of five kids, raised primarily in the 1970s. My father, working his way up the banking ladder, and my mother, who stayed home until taking a job as a church secretary, never had much time or extra income for travel in those days. My mother was from Fort Worth, and we'd journey there once a year for vacation. It was glorious.
In the 15 or so trips we took there during my youth, I remember only one trip to Six Flags. If we were lucky, we'd head to the local go-cart track and race each other for an hour or so. But vacation to us was more than theme parks or planned activities. It was the excitement of a new place, a new feel.
Because there were five kids, my dad drove a full-size Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser. That's a fancy name for a station wagon. We'd lay the seats down and spread out from wheel to wheel in a line of four with sleeping bags and pillows. Cries of "Don't touch me" and "Get your feet out of my face" were plentiful. Seat belts? Never thought of them. My little sister, the baby, was situated between my parents on the front bench seat. She couldn't see over the dashboard.
We awakened before sunrise into that beautiful calm of early morning and piled into assigned seats. After an hour, right when the vibrations from the station wagon lulled us back to sleep and the sun just peeked over the horizon, we'd feel the wagon turn a hard left into a parking lot. It was breakfast time. In Arkadelphia.
"Why do we stop so soon?" I'd ask my older brother.
"Shut up. It's Bowen's Restaurant. Don't complain or we'll be eating doughnuts at a truck stop."
We played games, read, and talked the whole way down. There was a big sign with a cow on it in Mount Pleasant, our talisman for Texas. We cheered when we saw the parachute-drop ride at Six Flags because we knew we were close. Fort Worth seemed so far away to our little brains, and the ride down there was what they called "travel."
My grandparents had both retired from the shoe department at Monnig's Department Store. My grandfather spent time playing golf and throwing intricate knives at a bull's-eye board he attached to a fence in the backyard. My grandmother doted on us, trying to reacquaint herself with each grandchild from Arkansas. My brothers and I stayed in my uncle's old room. He was a genuine hippie with plastic doves hanging from the ceiling and The Byrds and Buffalo Springfield posters on the walls. We thought he just liked animals.
My entire Fort Worth family smoked like power plants in the house and we took turns lighting their cigarettes or cigars from beautiful glass lighters. Those lighters were as fun as any toy we owned. Which probably wasn't a good thing.
My great-grandmother, Maw-Maw, lived with my grandparents and she was a pro-wrestling aficionado. Every Monday night, the room quieted when Maw-Maw turned on the TV to watch the Von Erichs, the Fabulous Freebirds, and Skandor Akbar.
"Maw-Maw, is this real? That last punch didn't even come close to that guy," I asked innocently.
"Shush your mouth. Of course it's real."
On one wonderful night, my dad loaded us up to see professional wrestling firsthand at the Tarrant County Convention Center. I'll never forget that. Or the 12-year-old girl next to us who yelled profanities like a pig-tailed Charlie Sheen.
All of us threw paper routes and mowed lawns growing up, so we had some spending money. The highlight of each Fort Worth trip was crossing the four-lane Hulen Road to the get to the U-Tote-M directly across from the house. We gorged on Cokes, candy, and Texas apparel. It was simple but good, and leaving Fort Worth was difficult. We loved our grandparents and the whole family way down there in Texas. We hated we wouldn't see them for another year.
I thought of those days as I stood in the Pike National Forest. Inside a cabin I'd found on Airbnb were my own five kids and a few extras (there are always extras these days), still waking up to the fresh sounds of a Colorado morning.
The chilled air brought a chance of snow, despite it being mid-June. I thought about how they'd never been to Fort Worth, that they had never seen the little house on Whistler and Hulen. But I also thought how they place great value not on where we are or what we do, but the fact that wherever we go--no matter how many times we've been there--is new. That alone is a luxury, just like my trips to Fort Worth.
Vacation is the time to taste that which feeds your soul. Mountains, beaches, big cities or quiet countryside fill one with respite and calm. There's no need to travel far to find a different atmosphere. There's no need because it's all about the pattern disrupted, the moment changed--even for a little while.
It's about the freedom to experience the stillness found in something new.
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Steve Straessle, whose column appears every other Saturday, is the principal of Little Rock Catholic High School for Boys. You can reach him at [email protected].
Editorial on 06/29/2019