July 28, 1999
DOWN HOME: Summer vacation
proves truth of travelling laws
___This is the time of year when the American family packs up its flip-flops, bundles up the children, loads up the dog and spends countless hours crammed in a car on the nation's highways. All in the name of fun.
___For many summers, Joanna, Lindsay, Molly and I trekked halfway across the continent for visits with our family. Now that we live near them back in Texas, we gear up and go see scenic sights. While this paper was being prepared, I was bobbing in the Gulf Coast. I love my job, but the beach beats work, at least for a week.
Marv Knox
Editor
___Through the years, however, I've learned three great lessons during summer vacation:
___The Law of Chrono-Geo Expansion. This means time and distance actually expand when two adults, two kids and a dog stay cramped on two car seats for 1,800 miles.
___It's a little-known fact, but the last 150 miles of any trip actually quadruple to about 600 miles. Your car thinks it's on an Interstate Treadmill.
___And during that time, children will ask, "How much longer?" at least 1,943 times. This is when they begin to grasp the concept of infinity.
___
___Fortunately, our vacation schedule usually doesn't allow time for watching much TV. Unfortunately, I inevitably walk past the set a few times. Daytime viewers have the choice between soap operas (in which Lucinda's boyfriend Rodney turns out to be her third cousin once-removed, an out-of-wedlock lovechild of Aunt Serena, the department-store heiress with amnesia, and an itinerant plumber who happens to be a German duke running from the Mafia) and talk shows (whose guests today are ungrateful daughters who have had their noses pierced, call their mothers porcupines and wear their fathers' boxer shorts to the mall).
___When I'm on vacation and see a TV set, I thank the Lord I've got a day job.
___
___I recalled this principle about a week and a half before we left for the beach, when Jo and I took the girls to one of the local water parks, complete with wave pool, slides and fake river.
___People don't wear suits and ties or dresses to water parks. And after standing in line with all manner of folk in all manner of near disrobement, I almost was tempted to cancel the beach, where I would spend nearly a week with people in the same predicament.
___Like I said, vacation is an educational experience. Thank the good Lord for honest work.
___
Contents/ Masthead / Why We're Here / Links / Archive / E-mail us/ SUBSCRIBE!
