The Sunday Memory Drawer - My Summer Vacation in Hell

Oh, Len, say it isn't so.  How could you possibly have a horrible time in Pennsylvania Dutch Country?   And what could you possibly have against those wonderfully simple folk?

Truth be told, I've got nothing against these horse-and-buggy types.  I would probably have loved this visit.

If I had only gotten the chance to actually see anything there.  Why would you go on vacation to a destination and then never visit it?

Yes, this is one of my childhood vacations with the family.  A trip that went horribly wrong at every turn.  And was badly conceived from the get-go.

When I was a kid, our major family summer outings were confined to two specific weeks a year.  The last week in July and the first week in August.  Those were the two weeks that my dad took off every summer.  You could set your calendar watch to those dates.  If Mom was working, she would do the same.  

So, the big summer fun was always super-concentrated into those fourteen days.  A night at Playland in Rye.  An afternoon trip downtown to see the summer fare at Radio City Music Hall.  A Met game at Shea.

And, somewhere embedded in those two weeks, we would actually pack a couple of suitcases and actually go someplace far.  Not on a plane, of course.  It was always a car ride.  Niagara Falls.  Atlantic City.  Lake George.  My mother would prep for the excursion by buying lots of peaches and plums for me to snack on during the four or five hour drive.  Invariably, these treks would be done in tandem with another family.  Usually my parents' friends and their kids.  The children would get along famously.  But, at some point, one of the adults would say the wrong thing to one of the other adults and the proclamation would be announced:

"WE'RE NOT GOING ANY PLACE WITH THEM AGAIN."

By the very next year, we would likely be out on the road with the same people all over again.

These vacations were fun for me, but, as I got older, I didn't necessarily want to hang out with a bunch of kids I barely knew.  I'd much prefer staying home with the gang in my neighborhood.

And, of course, bury myself in the New York Mets.

Such was my sentiment the year my mother took me aside and gave me the word on that year's planned trip.

"We're going away with Aunt Anne, Uncle Bob, and your cousins."

For informational purposes, that would be my mom's loony sister, her New York Yankee-obsessed husband, and my cousins who were close to my age.  They lived in Suffolk County and I wrote about our Sunday trips to their home several weeks ago.  

Sound harmless?  I didn't think so.  We had never traveled with this tribe before.  Our holiday visits on Long Island always found us with somebody being pissed at somebody else.  Now we're going to take this hilarity out on the road for the unsuspecting public to see??

I was eleven and felt that I could exert a bit of independence.

I'll stay home and keep Grandma and Grandpa company.  And, oh, yeah, watch the Mets on TV every single day.

Er, no.

Apparently, the voting age in my family was 12.  Because I didn't get one for this proposition on the ballot.  My mother went into oversell mode, telling me how much fun we would have in the planned destination.  

The Pennsylvania Dutch country.

Oh, I thought.  That's where the noodles come from.  

More heavy-handed selling from Mom.  The history of the region.  How educational it would be.

I saw impending doom at every turn in the country road.  I asked the simple question as to how they all had decided on visiting the Pennsylvania Dutch country.

"Well, that's where Uncle Bob's parents live."

Oh.  Why are we going?  That's not our family.

"Yes, it is.  Sort of."

But it's Uncle Bob's family.  Your brother-in-law's parents.  How are they connected to us?

"Well, they are.  Sort of."

I would not win a single point in this discussion.  I went into my room and looked at the New York Met baseball schedule which hung over my bed next to a photo of Jesus Christ.  Damn, the Mets were home that whole week.

And I wouldn't be.

The trip into the middle of Pennsylvania seemed to take forever.  We were traveling on our own.  My aunt and uncle were in a separate car.  As I looked out the window of my back seat, I saw nothing but grass.  I sucked down one plum and peach after another.  I thought briefly about swallowing a pit and ending it all right there in the back of the Buick.  

When we all arrived in the midst of nowhere, I was startled at how desolate it all was.  Where's our motel?

"We're staying at their house."

ALL OF US????  UNDER ONE ROOF???

I was back to thinking about clogging my windpipe with that peach pit all over again.

The house in question seemed to be the only one within miles.  There were just fields and fields and fields of grass.  It was as if we had come to a new planet.

We were all greeted by my cousins' grandparents and my amazement/shock continued anew.  I didn't remember seeing these two before.  They looked incredibly old.  My own grandmother and grandfather looked like John and Jackie Kennedy compared to these fossils.  

I had briefly thought that, perhaps, these two relics were actually Pennsylvania Dutch types.  Maybe I'd be riding in a horse and carriage.  Or get to watch the old lady churn up a stick of butter.

Nope.  As I surveyed their home, they had all the modern conveniences of the 20th century.  Except for one.

There was no air conditioning.

Or electric fans.

Or any breeze of any kind.

I felt my clothes adhering to every pore of my skin.  The only way I will be able to get undressed at the end of the day is by using a spatula.

And then the vacation started to kick into high gear.

We did nothing but sit around the house and talk.

My cousins and I fooled around outside and played in their yard which seemed to go on for acres.  But there was nothing but grass.  No swings.  No slides.  And, definitely NO SWIMMING POOL.

I could feel the temperature getting hotter by the second.

I asked my mother what our plans were for the next few days.  Sightseeing?  An amusement park nearby?  ANYTHING????

"We'll see what they want to do."

Meaning her sister and brother-in-law, who were too busy yakking it up with their side of the family.  And ultimately didn't really want to go anywhere.

I looked at the clock on the wall.  Back in civilization, it was 8PM.  The Met game would be starting right about now.  I could be sitting in the backyard with Grandma and Grandpa.  Wolfing down a slice of her rhubarb pie while radio announcer Bob Murphy would be telling me the New York Met lineup.

It would get worse.  As the night dragged on, people started to stretch and yawn.  

It was time to hear the sleeping arrangements.  Or how to cram six adults and three children into a two bedroom house that had virtually no air.

The shortest straw again?  Yours truly.  My bunk mates were my cousin Bobby and his grandfather.  From the heat I felt, it might have been on the top shelf of their convection oven.  Sweat pored out my body as if it was Old Faithful.  But dehydration was the least of my issues on that night.

The old fart snored.

I don't mean lightly.  He could be heard clear into Ohio.  Martians could hear him in their backyard light years away.  It was like I was trying to get some shut-eye in the middle of a lumber mill.

I kept looking at the clock.  Counting the minutes and the seconds until it would be morning.

Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.....

The next days were filled with as much boredom as the first one.  If there was anything to do in the vicinity, we sure as heck didn't do it.  I got the impression that my parents had even been sold a bill of goods on this one.  They started to look bored, too.

It was Friday and the coma set in on me early.  Until I remembered something.  Back home on the planet Earth, the Mets were home that night.  Playing the Philadelphia Phillies.

Whoa!!!!

Since the TV was always on in this dungeon, I knew that we were in the Philadelphia TV market.  Maybe the game was on with the Phillie announcers.  This was in the days before ESPN and the MLB Network.  But, local teams did broadcast games.  The Mets and Yankees did.  The game had to be on in Philadelphia.

OH, GOD, PLEASE LET THE GAME BE ON.

I asked the retched old buzzsaw which channel carried the Phillies.

"I don't know."

Do you have a TV Guide?

"We use the newspaper TV listings."

Do you have today's paper?

"I think we threw it out."

OLD MAN, THIS SHOULDN'T BE THIS HARD!!!

Guess who didn't get to see a baseball game on TV that night?

When I attempted to turn the channel in the family room that night, Uncle Bob scolded me.

"Don't turn that channel.  My father's trying to watch the 11 O'Clock News."

I wondered why.  There didn't seem to be happening within a hundred miles of this God-forsaken place.  

Meanwhile, the sports report came on.

"The Mets beat the Phils tonight in 10 innings, 3-2."

In those days, the Mets didn't win more than 50 or 60 games a season.  And I had missed it.  I felt so defeated that I wanted to cry.  Except there was no water left in my body.  All the liquid had been used up as perspiration.

I don't remember much about that vacation after that.  It might have lasted another day or maybe ten.  But, it certainly wasn't what my folks had in mind either.  There was definitely a tension in the air.

As we began the long drive back to where real people lived, I heard my mother's declaration from the front seat.
 
"WE'RE NOT GOING ANY PLACE WITH THEM AGAIN."

Dinner last night:  Bacon burger at GO Burger.