TOD
My family always went away for a week’s vacation during the summer, usually to the Jersey shore. The one exception was a lovely week at Saylors lake in the Poconos:
I remember riding swan shaped paddle boats around the lake and also sighting my first chipmunk while I was hunting blueberries.
My Aunt and Uncle took me on a road trip to Ithaca NY to visit their son at Cornell
The first non-family journey was a church day bus trip to NYC to see Wonderful Town.
Soon after I went with a school chum and his Mother, by train, to spend a week end in NYC with an Aunt. (We all saw Can-Can on that trip)
Then there was the time my Scout Master took me, by train, to spend a weekend in Boston (and yes we did).
During my sophomore year in high school, the family (now 5 of us) took a two week winter car trip to Sarasota Florida. (Florida was my Mon’s idea, Sarasota was mine – the Circus winters there!). This was 1954 and there were no interstates or fancy motels – you spent the night in private B&Bs or tiny road side cabins. I remember my first southern meal in a B&B in NC. There I was introduced to the prevailing southern ethos “Nigras are just like horses: break ‘em young, train them well and they well be of good service” – advice offered by our gentile southern hostess over our morning grits.
I also had a complete course in Modern American Poetry – the road side Burma Shave ads.
I also remember stocking up on fireworks in GA – a purchase which was neither Safe nor Sane!
On my first morning in Sarasota our hostess (from whom we were renting two rooms) asked me if I liked grapefruit. I said, yes, if it has honey on it. She said her grapefruit needed no honey and proceeded to the backyard and picked a very rotten looking (all brown) fruit from the tree. She cut open the fruit and served it up – tree ripened and sugar sweet!
Still in High School, I took my first Naval Reserve cruise – a summer jaunt to Provincetown MA (What ever were they thinking!) You can imagine the welcome a shipload of young sailors received.)
My first plane ride was when Annapolis sent me to Boston to represent them in a Forensics competition.
Other college years travels included: Montreal; ,Lisbon, Portugal; Copenhagen, Denmark; and Hamburg, Germany.
der Brucer
