Vacations are fun, but...

Everyone's family has gone on a vacation together, even if it was just a short trip to visit a grandparent. It is the long ride in the car that brings out the best and the worst in your parent's relationship and in your brothers or sisters. Oh the torment of listening to your parent's argue, "Just read the G__ damn map!!" Your sister curled up on the seat next to you with her feet barely touching you. You pull away and she moves them closer to you...just enough so they are still barely touching you. You look at her and she has that evil grin on her face. So you shout out, "She won't keep her feet off me!" only to get bombarded with "Oh, shut up!!" in stereophonic sound.

My family went on many vacations, but none of them exotic or adventures to foreign lands. My parents were middle-class, hard-working and we went to places we could drive to, stay a few days and drive home. Colonial Williamsburg was always one of my favorite places to go. I also enjoyed Niagara Falls, Skyline Drive and North Carolina. My parents went to Intercourse, Pennsylvania alone.

Mostly, we hung out at the golf club swimming all day or we went to the beach. On my mother's days off we would go to Rehoboth Beach; when my father had off, we went 4-wheeling to Assateague, Cape Henlopen or Lewes to surf fish. Surf fishing was the ultimate in fun as a child, but when I got old enough to stop dragging my Barbies with me, I wanted to go to the beach where the life guards were!

Still surf fishing is a fond memory for me. The fishing poles were gigantic and very difficult for a young girl to handle, so my Dad would help. He wore waist-high waders with suspenders. After he adhered the bait to the hook and added several silver weights to the line, he would walk into the ocean almost chest-high and cast the line. Then he would walk the pole back to me and let me stick it in a pole-holder secured in the sand. He propped up a beach chair for me and from that point on my job was to sit next to the pole and watch the tip of it intently. When it bent over in a U-shape I was instructed to pull the pole from the holder, secure the base of it in my leather fishing belt, yank it back as hard and fast as possible to "hook" the fish and start reeling it in. It took forever for me to pull in a fish, looking back on it I'm sure the fish were thinking, "Come on! Let's just get this over with!"

Pulling the fish from the water was as exciting as getting a prize from a box of Cracker Jacks! You never knew what the surprise was going to be. My father would cuss when he pulled in certain things; skate, shark, blowfish, etc. I loved catching anything and I particularly loved the blowfish! My grandfather taught me how to tickle their bellies and watch them blow up like a balloon; great fun. I also enjoyed catching skate. If you turned a skate over, their undersides were smooth, white and their mouths were kind of human-like, small and cute. We would always release the skate and the blowfish back into the ocean, after we played with them almost to death. I like to think they survived the trauma of a ten year old child though.

Sharks on the other hand were a totally different story. I will date myself now, but JAWS (the movie) didn't come out until I was fourteen, so my childhood didn't involve horror or fear at the beach. However, my father and grandfather taught me what to do with certain fish. Sharks were not to be handled by me, one of them would cut the line (losing a perfectly good hook). Then, they would throw the shark up on the beach for the seagulls to eat. I learned quickly that sharks had little value to the surf fisherman. Still, they were fun to catch and drag up from the water. They had teeth and would bite you in self-defense; yes, even the sand sharks. They had amazing eyes that looked like certain kinds of marbles I had in my huge collection as a child (I lost my marbles a long time ago). Bluefish was another type of nasty little biter. My dad showed me their teeth...once. After that, he got to take them off the line for me every time. Trout and flounder were fish I would handle. Flounder were just as fascinating to me as blow-fish; flat fish with their faces on one side of their body, how cool is that?!

After a day of baking in the sun, a bathing suit full of sand and hopefully, a cooler full of fish, we would head home. The jeep was not air conditioned, so when we reached the long patch of shade trees on South State Street Extension (close to home) it was like reaching a little piece of heaven! Once home, my mother would unpack and my father would head to the back yard to start cleaning the fish. When I was really young I would trail after him and watch. He used a fish scaler, a nasty little bugger that scrapes the scales off the fish. Then he used a knife to remove the insides, the head and tail and finally, he would fillet them. He could complete a cooler of fish in less than a half hour. My dad tried to convince me to clean the fish, but I was wise enough at ten to know this was a skill I didn't want to master. In my house, once your mastered something it became your permanent job. Um...no thanks. Could I do it if I were a contestant on "Survivor"? Yes, but I only if I had to.

While he was cleaning, filleting and wrapping the fish, my mother was unpacking and cleaning up, somewhere in there she showered as well. After my mother, showers were taken in birth order; oldest, middle, youngest. It is amazing to me how efficient we were. While Dad finished his job Mom would pull out a big chef salad she'd made in the morning before we left, make her own Good Seasonings salad dressing. For dessert we would have strawberry shortcake. Whoever was done showering helped out by setting the table, filling the glasses with ice and tea and refilling water in the ice trays. Then my Dad had his turn in the shower and when he was done we all sat down to eat together.

Finally, with all showered, fed and comfy in the air conditioning (and the fish stocked away in the freezer). My father would fall asleep in his chair, my mother would be on the couch with her feet up watching television; the dog laying beside her and I would run to the neighbor's house for an evening of more fun. When I think of vacations, this is what I remember.

Note to self: Family fun and adventures don't have to be expensive! :)