Vacation, what a wonderful word!  A sub-heading should be “Escape” from our daily routine life has dealt us.  We look forward to it and it is always too short and, in some cases, when we return, we need a vacation from it.  Yet it is an important element in our Quality of Life.

As a child, our vacations usually revolved around visiting family.  My Dad was a school teacher and frankly, the expense of anything other would have been prohibitive based on his salary.  I really didn’t mind as I did not have any other vacation experience to compare with.  As they say, ignorance is bliss and I lived in ecstasy!  One destination was Niagara Falls, New York as this was my mom’s hometown.  It was where my Grandparents and other members of the family, especially where cousins about my age lived.  Add in the falls and Canada I did not need anything else. What fun!

As I mentioned we lived in a small village in the Catskill mountains.  The trek to Niagara Falls had to be planned and my mother took charge.  My father let my mom take over as he knew it was far out of his wheelhouse and he was in the presence of a travel organization genius. 

I have heard it is said Elon Musk wants to go to Mars, and if my mom was still alive, she would be the “travel journey savant” he would seek out for organizational advice.

Our mode of transportation was a Plymouth, my dad was forever a Plymouth man.  This mode of transportation was amazingly turned into a self-contained travel vessel by my mom. 

The hatchback we had offered a small trunk.  With that said, nobody could pack a trunk like my mom.  It was a work of art.  Everything was there, even in duplicate.  Be prepared was a saying the boy scouts took from my mom.

We knew once the trip was launched, we did not stop at restaurants.  My mom would prepare the survival menu which consisted of tuna sandwiches, salami sandwiches, a variety of sliced vegetable snacks, and fruit including bananas, and topped off with a thermos of cool-aid to quench our thirst.  Loved the cool-aid!  And in her wisdom, she included barf bags in the event they was necessary.  Trust me with the pungent melding of the odors generated by her dining cuisine selections those bags came in handy many times!  Even today if I smell a banana and a tuna fish sandwich something doesn’t feel right!

To address one final issue in accordance with her nonstop rule if we could avoid it, she provided me with a pee bottle.  A pee bottle?  Wow, she thought of everything!

And we are off!

Now if you traveled during the 1950s as an enticement to stop at a gas station many offered what we called S&H Green Stamps (Sperry & Hutchinson).  Depending on how much you spent you would get this stamp similar to postage stamps.  You would take the stamps and paste them into the booklets S&H provided.  Once a book is filled and depending on the number of stamps you collected you could redeem them for a product they offered in their catalog.  My mother was a major collector and my tongue was the sponge she used to wet the stamp for posting.  She was ecstatic with her collection’s success and I was nauseous.  We each played our part.

The fuel of choice for my father was supplied by a “Gulf” station.  And in keeping with his preferences my mother would try to accommodate him with one caveat, you guessed it, they had to have an S&H green stamp sign alongside it.  She could spot that a mile away.  An eagle had nothing on my mom.  Our quality-of-life formula was Gulf plus stamps equals a happy family!

  My vacations, I remember them well.  I wouldn’t trade those memories for the world.