Growing up in Louisa – Family Vacations
Weekly feature . . . by Mike Coburn
I’ve been wanting to take some time off the job to hit the road for a sweet vacation with my darling wife. The motivation is that we have a few things going on that are taking up our time and keeping life a bit stressful for both of us. Sometimes, life just gets in the way, if you know what I mean. The more excuses we have to prevent us from taking that relaxing respite, the more I want to go. It has gotten so bad that I am totally flexible about where to go. The ultimate destination no longer is important. Don’t get me wrong, it might matter once I get there, but for me the getting there is the real goal.
That kind of thinking tells me how spoiled I have become. I actually think it is ‘my right’ to take time off. Therein lies the rub. It wasn’t that way in the old days. Vacations for the middle class is a relatively new idea that was born during our very lifetime. Maybe paid vacations are a product of modern human study, or union negotiations, or companies trying to attract workers by having better benefits. I don’t know, but in thinking about it, we are lucky these days. Here’s the thing: like every other positive change we receive to improve our standard of living, we too soon forget the past and take those things for granted.
Given the history of man, it is absolutely amazing that the ‘middle class,’ is now able to take time off to visit and stay in fine resorts, when thirty-forty years ago it wasn’t even a thought. What did the word vacation mean to the working man in eastern Kentucky back in our day? I can tell you that farmers, miners, merchants, and others had no ideas about taking time off work. Except perhaps for our underpaid teachers, our few wealthy citizens, or railway workers, the job was year around. Of course, that pertained to our area of world, but it differed with many around larger population centers.
First of all, in the big cities there were segments of the truly upper class. This included the obscenely wealthy ‘robber barons’ of industry. These men occasionally took time away from the pressures of increasing their business holdings to live lives comparable to the landed gents of English aristocracy. The families of these tycoons focused on activities such as ‘the hunt’ (poor foxes), banquets, balls, and parties that were attended by a restrictive social group. Hollywood enjoyed making movies of this favored elite, but rest assured that they didn’t exist in our little community.
On the other hand, kids in big cities, like New York, etc., headed for the Adirondacks for a week’s fishing and camping, or somewhere else to get away from the summer heat. Well-to-do families took their summers in Bar Harbor, Maine, or some other northern escape. They called their summer homes ‘camps,’ which were mansions by any standard. It was here, or nearby Seal Harbor that people like the Rockefellers and Morgan’s, or Carnegie’s used to stay to avoid the steamy summer. Often, the man of the house would be relegated to commute back and forth, but the wife, kids, cousins, and hired help would enjoy the easy life of the gentry in northern climes. Well, maybe the hired help still had to work. I guess other wealthy folk went on cruises to Europe. Climates were cooler there and they could see the sights. They visited historical places, collected art, went over the Alps, and enjoyed a variety of climates from the Med to the mountains. I never heard a hint that anyone from our town even considered such a trip.
It was the affluent adults who took trips to play in the healing waters of springs at resorts such the Greenbrier, at White Sulphur Springs, WV, or like FDR visiting at his ‘little white house’ in Warm Springs, GA. While some grownups attended such places, kids weren’t usually invited. It was in the 20’s and 30’s before golf and tennis started becoming popular as a sport for adults, but even then, it was primarily for the affluent. Life for most of us wasn’t about ‘fun,’ but about surviving.
For us poor or common folk, I wonder when the phrase “family vacation,” crept into our vocabulary. I did hear rumors of some longer trips taken by other families, but even then it would have been by those we considered as ‘better off.’ I remember seeing a few ‘vacation’ pictures once after someone took a long trip out-of-town. For example, I remember when (I think it was Doctor Tisco) had taken his family all the way to Virginia Beach, Virginia. I was good in geography, but at the time it was the first I’d heard of the place. I had a mental picture of the Atlantic Ocean and big waves crashing on the beach. I might have seen that in a movie, but it certainly wasn’t on the Big Sandy. Thinking back, taking such a trip on those old roads, would have taken 12-14 hours, or even longer. (As it happens now, I have lived most of my life near Virginia Beach. Actually, I live about half-way between Virginia Beach and Williamsburg, another good vacation destination.)
I did hear of couples taking their ‘honeymoons’ at Niagara Falls, (mostly on TV) and had seen pictures of some of the nation’s treasurers like Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, or Yosemite National Parks. I didn’t personally know anyone who gone to those western destinations. Since those early years, I have seen photos in memory albums and in “Reminisce Magazine,” of families from other areas that had jumped into their model T’s and put their lives at risk by driving long distances on those primitive highways. Some even made it to northern California to see the giant redwoods. (I remember seeing a picture of a road that went right through one of those big trees. Recently I read that that tree had finally fallen.)
In an agrarian society, everyone in the family was needed to take care of the milking and other chores at home. There was no time, or even a thought given about a family vacation. In the mining towns that peppered the hills of Kentucky and West Virginia, the miners had to work to barely stay even. Some of the bosses may have taken leave, but the miners themselves were often faced with poverty. Like the old Tennessee Ernie hit song, everyone ‘owed it all to the company store.’ Even the kids sometimes had to take work in the mines just to keep the family from getting further in debt.
All this said, I don’t remember a time that our whole family did anything together outside of the house, other than maybe a picnic, or a short day-trip. When I looked back at the history of vacations I discovered that in the earlier days of this nation kids were let out of school in the spring and in the fall to help with planting and harvesting. Those of us coming along after that time were lucky to be ‘let loose’ for a summer vacation. During that time, some kids were ‘shipped out,’ to grandparents, or to other family members, or sent to a litany of summer camps. It was a rare thing that parents took time away from work and hit out on a road trip. In those days, for most there were no ‘family vacations.’
In our case, the words of Gershwin’s song from ‘Porgy and Bess,’ that starts with ‘Summer time, when the living is easy…’ fits what I remember about summer when we were growing up. Indeed, it was slow and easy, lest we suffer heat exhaustion or have a stroke. Even sandlot baseball was a task for us boys on the hottest days. I tended to stay on the porch swing, read comics, take a nap, and hope for a cooling afternoon storm. Speaking of that, I remember wading in the puddles left by the storm and watching the steam rise from the hot blacktop. Some street drains would have a blockage so the puddles ran ankle deep. It was fun to ride your bike through them, too, splashing everyone around. Well, surely not on purpose… heh, heh.
After I had grown up and had kids of my own, I began to think of vacations as a bonding experience for the family. Those trips were loads of fun, if tiring. Finally, one year I had a money-raising idea that resulted in raising enough cash to try going to Florida. By this time my employer granted paid vacation, so it was something that fit so long as I could raise the money.
On that first trip, the kids got to meet some relatives that lived in Florida. We stayed with them to save money, so we got to visit Disney World and Sea World. After that, we made it a regular habit to take at least ‘mini-trips’ every month, not always overnight, but to places we had never seen before. We called them ‘explores.’ The rules were that everyone was required to be happy, so there was to be no griping. Further, no matter where we were, we were never lost. After all, we could see we were all right there in the van.
Over the years, I took them on trips that centered around business conventions I had to attend anyway. We took some fantastic trips to several spots from Key West, FL, to Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Texas, to Tennessee (Grand Ole Oprey), to Dollywood, and the nation’s capital in DC. I never made up a ‘bucket list,’ but I’ve had my share of great experiences, anyway. Now, like most of America, I spend my working days looking forward to the next vacation. May it come quickly! Oh! Unless I forget, lives changed because of air conditioning, too. Wow! What a life!
In looking back, when I was growing up in the sticks (comparatively) and suffering our poor roads, and having a lack of discretionary money, and no vehicle, it isn’t surprising that we didn’t travel. Thank goodness times have changed. Our standard of living cannot compare to the old days. It’s not just the better income, or the paid vacations, but also how we live every day. Grand inventions including air conditioning, microwaves, TV, and better highways have made a difference. Like many of you readers, I’ve been a lot of places, taken cruises, and seen much of the countryside of this great nation, along with the cities, parks, museums, and a mixture of people. I’ve stayed in resorts, and fished in waters in the north, south and the Midwest. I have been blessed beyond my dreams. I have seen much of America, but even after that there are many sights left to see. We are so blessed.
Today, vacation means a distraction from the stresses of everyday life. As empty nesters (at least for the moment) my wife and I still try to go on a weekend ‘explore’ every month and take a few weeks’ vacation every year. If you are in a position where you can, I recommend it. I know that there may be a day when I can no longer travel, but meanwhile, I hope to burn up some of the roads and discover places I’ve never seen. Maybe I’ll run into you there. (Not literally, I hope.)
Take care, my friends, and get out see the sights as you can. In any case, relax, take some nourishment, and kick back as we wind up this travel season and near the end of summer. Fittingly, next week I’ll write about that next event when vacations end and the kids go ‘back to school.’
