What is My Favorite Summer Vacation? ©
Posted: Thursday, July 07, 2011
by Arlene Wright-Correll
http://www.learn-america.com
When I was a kid in Brooklyn my favorite summer vacation was simply not going to school and knowing that on hot days someone from the water works would come to our block and open up the fire hydrants where we kids could run, jump and basically go crazy while cooling off and when the ice man came we knew he would give us chips of ice off his ice cart.
As I got older in the summer time I would be able to go swimming at Cyprus pool or going to the St. George hotel for their indoor pool on rainy days, when the summer sessions at Grover Cleveland High School opened, I could be found in their pool and if I had the fare for the trolley car I would go out to Billy Roses Aquacade and swim there all day. If I was really flush then I could treat myself to an ice cream cone at the Howard Johnson ice cream stand at the exit on the way home.
Simple pleasures seem to be the best ones and they were well earned because there was no extra money in our home for these treats so I worked for the neighbors for 5 cents to 25 cents depending on the chore or we kids would take our wagon and find pop bottles that had 3 to 5 cent deposits on them and turn them in. We also scrounged for scrap and newspapers during WWII and earned money that way.
When I was an adult raising 5 kids my favorite summer vacation was camping with my husband and those kids. We went to many favorite places and we were explorers in our own wonderful country discovering new places. Many great memories are embedded in all our minds and now these grown children go camping with their families and instead of pop-up tents they go in 42 foot RV’s.
After retiring and raising our family it seemed we could have our favorite summer vacation any time of the year and our world expanded even though we both separately did a lot of world traveling with our jobs as the kids were growing since we arranged our schedules so there was always one parent at home whenever the other one was out of town, state or country.
However, now the time came when we could do our exploring together and the whole wide world become our playground for several years.
Now at 76 and 78 and with air travel a real pain and sometimes downright scary we have decided our favorite summer vacation is right here on our 4 acres in Kentucky where we can get up any time we want to, sleep whenever we are tired, assign some chores we no longer want to do to reliable others who will capably do it for a nominal wage. We can eat when we are hunger, drink when we are dry, answer the phone or let the voice mail get it depending on our mood, paint or work in the stained glass studio when we want to, teach workshops at Avalon Stained Glass School and Creativity Center to other vacationers and just generally enjoy our favorite summer vacation all year long.
It can’t get any better than this!
May the Creative Force be With You.
Arlene Wright-Correll
Simple pleasures seem to be the best ones and they were well earned because there was no extra money in our home for these treats so I worked for the neighbors for 5 cents to 25 cents depending on the chore or we kids would take our wagon and find pop bottles that had 3 to 5 cent deposits on them and turn them in. We also scrounged for scrap and newspapers during WWII and earned money that way.
When I was an adult raising 5 kids my favorite summer vacation was camping with my husband and those kids. We went to many favorite places and we were explorers in our own wonderful country discovering new places. Many great memories are embedded in all our minds and now these grown children go camping with their families and instead of pop-up tents they go in 42 foot RV’s.
After retiring and raising our family it seemed we could have our favorite summer vacation any time of the year and our world expanded even though we both separately did a lot of world traveling with our jobs as the kids were growing since we arranged our schedules so there was always one parent at home whenever the other one was out of town, state or country.
However, now the time came when we could do our exploring together and the whole wide world become our playground for several years.
Now at 76 and 78 and with air travel a real pain and sometimes downright scary we have decided our favorite summer vacation is right here on our 4 acres in Kentucky where we can get up any time we want to, sleep whenever we are tired, assign some chores we no longer want to do to reliable others who will capably do it for a nominal wage. We can eat when we are hunger, drink when we are dry, answer the phone or let the voice mail get it depending on our mood, paint or work in the stained glass studio when we want to, teach workshops at Avalon Stained Glass School and Creativity Center to other vacationers and just generally enjoy our favorite summer vacation all year long.
It can’t get any better than this!
May the Creative Force be With You.
Arlene Wright-Correll
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)Nice article. Pleasant experiences and looking back. I don't like to fly either. May the Creative Force always be with us. Thanks for your article!Christopher,
Thanks for the comment. I don't mind flying, but I cannot stand the necessary Homeland Security that goes with it nowadays. The last time I flew, this 76 yr. old writer got hand searched because my clothes were too baggy and the time before that I almost got strip searched on my return trip because my driver's license expired by 2 days even though it's perusal went unnoticed on the beginning of my trip. Egads, I wasn't going to drive the plane.
Arlene Wright-Correll
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