How to Doo a Phun Phamily Vacation
Are you in that “summer is SO over” mindset? Are you preoccupied with thoughts of the new school year? Of the latest fall fashions? Of whether this is the year that I finally win one of those $500,000 no-strings-attached MacArthur “Genius Awards”?
If so, just remember: Summer doesn’t officially end until 12:03 a.m. on September 23rd, which I think is also the exact moment that I’ll next be able to use the Internet again. Until then, it’ll be tied up every second by No. 3 son (age 11), who’s obsessively managing his 138 fantasy football tea—check that; another “draft” just concluded. Make that 139 fantasy football teams.
Speaking of fantasies, let’s shed that “Where did the summer go?” mindset by exploring another warm weather fantasy – that of the Relaxing Family Summer Vacation. Join me on a sort of slide show of one such excursion, only without the slides. (Question: does anyone out there remember slides?)
Our 2006 Relaxing Family Summer Vacation took us to Wildwood, New Jersey, which -- did you know this? – is the Doo Wop Capital of the entire world. This has to do in part with the wacky, tacky 1950s-era hotels that are around every corner, places with names like The Satellite, The Starlux, and The Astronaut. Wildwood is also home to the Doo-Wop Preservation League, which I assume is dedicated to assuring that people never forget the timeless musical achievements of artists such as The Bop Chords, The Cleftones and Jerry Blavat, who all were apparently popular in spite of names that sound vaguely like medical conditions.
One of Wildwood’s popular destinations is a lengthy boardwalk, featuring carnival games, an amusement park, and a complete 18-hole miniature bickering course. Well, the kids and I bickered; my wife golfed.
The boardwalk is nirvana for a kid with pockets full of his parents’ money to spend. No. 4 son (age 9) bought a shirt just like the Italian World Cup soccer champions wore, meaning that he came home from New Jersey with a new jersey.
About 20 minutes from Wildwood is the town of Cape May, famous for its quaint neighborhoods of Victorian-era homes. We lunched there one day at a restaurant called Henry’s. Cape May is a delightful destination unto itself. But if you’re the type who travels somewhere and then daydreams about being somewhere else, Henry’s has the ticket: a fish sandwich which the menu says will make you “feel like you’re in the Florida Keys.”
Back in Wildwood, we thoroughly enjoyed an absolutely gargantuan beach. No joke, it was a good quarter-mile from the street to the waterline. Although it felt like a bad quarter-mile to me. By the time I lugged our entire semi-portable beach habitat and infrastructure to the water’s edge, I felt like I’d walked to the Florida Keys.
After a week spent embedding Wildwood’s sands into every pore of our bodies, we headed back home, with a stopover in Philadelphia.
We started with a visit downtown, seeing many sites of historical (or as my kids say, “his-BORING-cal”) significance. Then we went to a Philadelphia Phillies baseball game, which was really phun. The phestivities started with a ceremonial phirst pitch thrown by “Anthony,” the guy who wears the blue shirt in that phamous and phabulously wealthy children’s entertainment conglomerate known as “The Wiggles.” If I wasn’t so charitable, I might be inclined to say Anthony’s got a rag arm; his ceremonial pitch was so slow it didn’t cross the plate until the 4th inning.
To commemorate our visit, we posed for a picture outside the stadium at the foot of a large statue of Phillie immortal Robin Roberts, one of the best pitchers in baseball in the 1950s. He also played for my beloved Chicago Cubs. Unfortunately, that wan't until the mid-1960s, when he was throwing the ball way less effectively than Anthony Wiggle.
For some reason, Roberts’ statue is painted to look as though it sprang from a black and white photograph. My kids just couldn’t fathom it. I tried to explain what black-and-white was, which led to a tangent about slides, and another about Doo-Wop, and yet another about Robin Roberts’ career-ending injury (a herniated Blavat).
When I was done, I asked if they learned anything. No. 3 said “No. We pretty much tuned out at the start, when you said ‘Long before there was fantasy football. . .’”
# # #
TakefiveT5@yahoo.com
If so, just remember: Summer doesn’t officially end until 12:03 a.m. on September 23rd, which I think is also the exact moment that I’ll next be able to use the Internet again. Until then, it’ll be tied up every second by No. 3 son (age 11), who’s obsessively managing his 138 fantasy football tea—check that; another “draft” just concluded. Make that 139 fantasy football teams.
Speaking of fantasies, let’s shed that “Where did the summer go?” mindset by exploring another warm weather fantasy – that of the Relaxing Family Summer Vacation. Join me on a sort of slide show of one such excursion, only without the slides. (Question: does anyone out there remember slides?)
Our 2006 Relaxing Family Summer Vacation took us to Wildwood, New Jersey, which -- did you know this? – is the Doo Wop Capital of the entire world. This has to do in part with the wacky, tacky 1950s-era hotels that are around every corner, places with names like The Satellite, The Starlux, and The Astronaut. Wildwood is also home to the Doo-Wop Preservation League, which I assume is dedicated to assuring that people never forget the timeless musical achievements of artists such as The Bop Chords, The Cleftones and Jerry Blavat, who all were apparently popular in spite of names that sound vaguely like medical conditions.
One of Wildwood’s popular destinations is a lengthy boardwalk, featuring carnival games, an amusement park, and a complete 18-hole miniature bickering course. Well, the kids and I bickered; my wife golfed.
The boardwalk is nirvana for a kid with pockets full of his parents’ money to spend. No. 4 son (age 9) bought a shirt just like the Italian World Cup soccer champions wore, meaning that he came home from New Jersey with a new jersey.
About 20 minutes from Wildwood is the town of Cape May, famous for its quaint neighborhoods of Victorian-era homes. We lunched there one day at a restaurant called Henry’s. Cape May is a delightful destination unto itself. But if you’re the type who travels somewhere and then daydreams about being somewhere else, Henry’s has the ticket: a fish sandwich which the menu says will make you “feel like you’re in the Florida Keys.”
Back in Wildwood, we thoroughly enjoyed an absolutely gargantuan beach. No joke, it was a good quarter-mile from the street to the waterline. Although it felt like a bad quarter-mile to me. By the time I lugged our entire semi-portable beach habitat and infrastructure to the water’s edge, I felt like I’d walked to the Florida Keys.
After a week spent embedding Wildwood’s sands into every pore of our bodies, we headed back home, with a stopover in Philadelphia.
We started with a visit downtown, seeing many sites of historical (or as my kids say, “his-BORING-cal”) significance. Then we went to a Philadelphia Phillies baseball game, which was really phun. The phestivities started with a ceremonial phirst pitch thrown by “Anthony,” the guy who wears the blue shirt in that phamous and phabulously wealthy children’s entertainment conglomerate known as “The Wiggles.” If I wasn’t so charitable, I might be inclined to say Anthony’s got a rag arm; his ceremonial pitch was so slow it didn’t cross the plate until the 4th inning.
To commemorate our visit, we posed for a picture outside the stadium at the foot of a large statue of Phillie immortal Robin Roberts, one of the best pitchers in baseball in the 1950s. He also played for my beloved Chicago Cubs. Unfortunately, that wan't until the mid-1960s, when he was throwing the ball way less effectively than Anthony Wiggle.
For some reason, Roberts’ statue is painted to look as though it sprang from a black and white photograph. My kids just couldn’t fathom it. I tried to explain what black-and-white was, which led to a tangent about slides, and another about Doo-Wop, and yet another about Robin Roberts’ career-ending injury (a herniated Blavat).
When I was done, I asked if they learned anything. No. 3 said “No. We pretty much tuned out at the start, when you said ‘Long before there was fantasy football. . .’”
# # #
TakefiveT5@yahoo.com
posted by Don Stuart at 9:27 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home