Vacations

The word vacation is not really one I hold in my brain as particularly wonderful. I know that sounds odd. But let me explain:
As a kid, we took a vacation every year. Every year. One week. I don’t remember one being longer, and I’m sure I’d remember it if it happened! Keep in mind all of the things you’ve read about my Dad and ‘his ways’. So here’s how vacationing went for the Ellingson Family….
Daddy had a Sportsman’s shop. That’s what I remember hearing it referred to as growing up. It was called Sportsman’s Paradise. He sold fishing boats, fishing equipment and the like. In fact, when you see a boat on top of a car, as we did in the 50’s and 60’s, my dad invented the contraption that put said boat on top of your car in the late 40’s. Another fact, for those who have been to my home and wondered why I have an Alumacraft boat as a planter in my yard, it’s because that is the original boat used to demonstrate the Quick-n-Easy Boat Loader. And once you’ve filled an Alumacraft boat with dirt, it ain’t goin’ anywhere! Aren’t you glad you know that? Anyway, vacations. Being a ‘sportsman’ we had to do ‘sportsman’ stuff on vacation. …Apparently that’s in the handbook somewhere. Did you know that the advent of the infomercial is not as modern as you may think. When the Quick-n-Easy Boat Loader was ready for production and sale, my Dad took her up to Lake Shasta along with my planter and did a ½ hour commercial. They were almost like little documentaries, I guess. Advertisement. I don’t know, I wasn’t born in the 40’s. Quite. By the time I came along, everyone had his own Quick-n-Easy Boat Loader and boating was the thing for the Ellingson’s to do on our one-week vacation. Now you might think, how fun!!! And I suppose many did enjoy their week. However, I was little and they didn’t want to lose me overboard and certainly didn’t want me to get wet. So me in my big ol’ orange Mae West went under the hull of the boat. I can remember my Dad saying, ‘Dolly, does she have to stay down there?’ And Mamma answering, ‘yes! She’s dry and out of the way’. That, apparently, was important. Mamma was a practical woman. Now, think about what a boat does when you go screaming through the water at break neck speed pulling your skier to new heights of thrills and spills!!! The hull of the boat slams into the water about 57 times a minute! Slam!!! Slam!! Slam!!! All of those in the rest of the boat are laughing with the wind rushing through their hair, little droplets of Lake Shasta cooling their sun-drenched brows, basking in the remembrance of the thrill of their last turn behind the Alumacraft! But not Jeanette. Noooooooooo! She is being slammed!!! But…I’m dry and out of the way. Again, apparently important.
In the days in which I was born, it was a belief that you should put your babies in the sun everyday for their daily dose of vitamin, I don’t know, K maybe? Whatever. Well, my mother would laugh and say that she could never get me past 2 minutes without burning me! How endearing….so, we know sun was not my friend. Still isn’t. So, water was out, sun was out. Mosquitoes looooved me!!! So I was covered with clothes from head to toe and those parts unclothed were either covered with bug spray or Calamine lotion for those spots the mosquitoes found exposed! It really seemed like everyone else was having a good time. I just don’t see how. I just wanted to be home with my Gramma! In the back bedroom. In my pajamas she had warmed in the oven. After I’d brushed my teeth with Pike-O-Pay tooth powder on my very own little yellow tooth brush. After my Lack-to-Pine bubble bath in the big tub with the feet. After she had tucked me in and kissed me goodnight and told me she loved me and couldn’t wait for me to wake up in the morning. Now that’s a vacation……

To be continued, because the trips to Lake Shasta only lasted until I was 7. You won’t believe what they called a vacation after that! Stay tuned…