Reminiscing

After my parents divorced in 1964, we visited Dad every other weekend (when mom would let us) and for two glorious weeks each summer. Those summer vacations were a welcome escape from a less than pleasant childhood, and some of my most precious memories. Every summer Dad would drive all five of us kids to Florida for two weeks of sun and tourist traps and sunburns and cheap hotels (all named the Pelican or the Sand Dollar or the Seafarer or the like), and each year we’d end up in a different city.  

One year it was Treasure Island, where we visited the Sunken Gardens in St. Petersburg (formed by one of the huge sinkholes that frequently plague south central Florida.) We saw the replicas of the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria, and attended a great dolphin show at the local outdoor aquarium where trained porpoises jumped over bars and leapt high in the air to grab fish out of trainers’ mouths, and seals thrilled audiences with their comical belly slides and rollovers and flapping of flippers. We went to Busch Gardens and sampled beer when Anheiser Busch was still American owned,  and attended a  bird show, watching in wonder as trained parrots, cockatiels, and parakeets slid down slides and pushed tiny wheelbarrows around a stage, and beautiful pink flamingos stood on one leg and peacocks showed off their magnificent fantails.  Another year we visited St Augustine, where Dad made sure he took us to every single, historical building: the oldest school, church, jail, courthouse, fort, etc, making sure to take movies at each one.  Dad’s penchant for taking a movie of the historical signs, moving the camera back  and forth as if the camera was “reading” the sign always made us laugh.  

A visit to Daytona Beach had us marveling at cars driving on the beach, and of course we collected tons of seashells and even rented a paddle boat to trek out to a sandbar for a picnic lunch. As luck would have it, though, paddling back to shore was a lot harder than paddling out, as we were going against the tide, so my sister and I had to get out and swim to shore; I got the worst sunburn that year and spent most of the rest of that trip pouting, wearing a long sleeve shirt and putting vinegar on my blisters.  

Yet another year found us in central Florida at Cypress Gardens watching pretty ladies in swimsuits waterski across blue waters, and later we would be traversing lakes in glass bottomed boats, our little faces plastered against the glass to see manatees and fish and alligators. We visited Weekiwatchee and watched, enthralled, as “mermaids” performed underwater and waved to us.  Walt Disney World was still a dream in Walt’s head, and Orlando’s biggest attraction was Gator Land, where kids could feed live gators, and watch big, burly trainers throw sides of beef to crocodiles as audiences screamed in mock terror. We saw beautiful birds with feathery plumage: snowy egrets, great blue herons, pelicans, and shorebirds.  

The trip down was never boring, albeit five kids in a car for two days got a bit noisy at times, and there were the requisite tussles and spats.  The interstate wasn’t completed all the way from Ohio to Florida back in the 60s, so we’d have to take US 41 through the Tennessee Valley, but we loved stopping at all the roadside stands, where locals sold handmade quilts, pillows with pom-poms, freshly made jam, and local honey; seeing all the dams created as part of FDR’s New Deal was quite the educational bonus.  Then there were stops at Stuckey’s, home of the famous (and deliciously sticky sweet) pecan log, the various welcome centers at the borders of each state we entered, and overnight motels. The Florida welcome center served fresh squeezed orange juice back then, and we’d eagerly line up for cup after cup; now all they have is vending machines. One year we even stopped at Rock City in Chattanooga, TN, and spent three wonderful days exploring the caverns and magical gnome dioramas; if you’ve ever seen the words “See Rock City” painted on the side of a barn, you’re seeing roadside marketing at its finest.  Then there was the year of the ham:  Dad decided he’d buy a huge ham to help defray meal costs.  We had ham and eggs, ham sandwiches, ham soup, ham and beans, even ham and potatoes; it was like the Bubba Gump of Ham, and we never let him live that down.  

How my dad managed to retain his sanity for two weeks taking care of five children (four girls and a mentally handicapped boy) is a mystery—our ages the first year were 2, 5, 7, 9, and 12, and believe me, as we grew into puberty it didn’t get any easier. We all had our share of temper tantrums and teenage angst.  One year he did hire a college girl, a daughter of one of his friends, to help him wrangle us girls—two of us were adolescents and he did not want to deal with questions about feminine hygiene products or processes 

One of the stories Dad loved to recount concerned my stubborn insistence on ordering the soup du jour for lunch, even though I had no idea what that meant-it just sounded grown up, and at 14 I really wanted to be grown up!The soup arrived at the table:  clam chowder. I hated clam chowder, so I just refused to eat it and demanded a hamburger instead.  Dad told the waitress no way, and told me I had to finish that damn soup; I did, and I learned a valuable lesson that day: know what you’re ordering, and eat what you get. Dad never tired of regaling my friends and husband and kids with  that story. 

As far as I can recall, Dad never alluded to the cost of anything, or denied us souvenirs, or neglected to take us to any attraction in the city being visited.  He let us be kids.  We’d climb on fort walls, shoot imaginary cannons, swim in the hotel pools until we were waterlogged and had bloodshot eyes, and build countless sand castles.  Somehow we’d all make it down and back safely, and we’d wait with anticipation until the next summer.  The days, weeks and months seemed to drag on and we thought summer would  never arrive.  But it inevitably did.  

Those cherished memories will always be with me, and I count myself blessed to have experienced places and things and events of yesteryear. Busch Gardens no longer showcases  cool bird antics,  and the old Busch clock tower and beer gardens are overshadowed by modern roller coasters. Legoland sits where Cypress Gardens once was, and the pretty ladies waterskiing are long gone; only a few acres of the botanical gardens remain.  Most of the open air aquariums and amusement parks in Florida have succumbed to the “progress” of giant corporations such as Seaworld, Disney and Universal, and the quaint pink and blue Sand Dollar and Pelican and SeaFarer motels are gone, replaced by shiny modern, towering condominiums and resorts. Little did I know we were receiving a priceless education in history, zoology, geography, and the like, but isn’t that always the case with children? Experiences taken for granted then  are that much more  appreciated now, both new and old, and I’m all the more complete  to have experienced both.  Divorce is never easy—for parents or for children. But my dad made sure he made the most out of every moment we spent with him, and for that, I am eternally grateful.