I’ve often felt that the best way to gauge someone’s authentic self is to observe them in their natural habitat. When and where is a family more raw than when traveling together? Come. Join me on a journey. I’m inviting you to get a bird’s eye view of my family at it’s finest dysfunction.
It’s approximately 1980. The parental units are still married, but barely. All three girls are still living at home, aged 15, 13 & 7. Dad decides the brutal Winters are too hard on his chronic pain (see: hypochondria) and looks into heading West. Arizona, here we come. Now, mind you, this is our first family vacation. First. Not a camping trip, not a visit to the Nation’s capital, not even so much as a road trip to Mackinaw Island. Nothing. I have my own theories about this. While my crazy, middle sister (who insists her real parents were aristocrats) would maintain that we were too dreadfully poor to take lavish vacations. I would disagree. I think my parents just didn’t like us enough to want to travel for any length of time with us.
So, imagine the hustle and bustle that would accompany our very first family vacation. I was only 7, so I didn’t know any better, but for the older girls, I’m sure you could relate to their enthusiasm and sheer excitement. We had visions of the three of us posing with fancy head dresses and cute sunglasses on, covered in souveniers, a golden tan and smiling from ear to ear. No doubt each of us had our own personalized images of when the Brady’s went to the Grand Canyon. Would we get thrown behind bar in an old mining town? Would we camp out under the stars and befriend a little Indian boy? Would we attend a pow wow and then be given Indian names? If so, what would my Indian name be? The possibilities were endless!
3 Days into our “vacation”, picture it: the 5 of us had been driving around Phoenix, Tempe, Scottsdale, Flagstaff, Tucson and Mesa in an Aries K car which is about the equivalent of a Ford Tempo, but not quite as fancy. We’d looked at house after house. After house. After house. None of which we could afford, but hemmed and hawed nevertheless. My parents were cruel. They’d drag us to 20 houses a day. Each one was more interesting and promising than the one before. My mother would say, “Ooooohhh. Looook, this could be your room and we could get yellow gingham balloon valences and a matching bedspread…..” and she get us all fired up then we’d drive away. She smoke her Ginny Slims and stare out the window of the K car. This would go on and on for 2 weeks. You can only trick a dog so many times to get into the car for a “ride” before he’s wise to you.
Here are the highlights of the trip that I can remember to date:
1. Lee got a virus and was able to spend the majority of the “vacation” in the motel room (she was always a smartie, that Lee)
2. Crazy, middle sister entertained herself by pulling out my bottom 4 teeth and they’ve since grown in terribly crooked and I look like a bulldog, thanks to that trip.
3. I swallowed too much water in the pool one day and threw up. They had to close the motel pool (yeah, that’s right, I said, MOTEL, not hotel….). Embarrassment ensued.
4. I got to go swimming at night one evening. The lights of the pool, amid the moon & stars was just about the most thrilling thing I’d ever seen or done and I believed I had truly arrived at that point.
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