When I was much more active as a nautical carver, vacations were of the working sort. My wife and I would pack the car with four kids and camp goods and go to whatever boat show I would do that week. During the day, I’d work my booth, and the kids would run around the waterfront, enveigle free goodies from fellow booth owners, and tour the nearby attractions.Â
The consensus among my now adult children was that they had a good time at the boat shows and the nearby seaside towns. I can reliably state that no added scintilla or false glow was added afterward. More than a few times, the campground was drenched in downpours, or we spent Sunday mornings doing soaked laundry and sleeping bags at a laundromat. While the uninitiated tend to think of coastal breezes on the shore, being in a gigantic tent during a steamy afternoon at a boat show is not an ideal place to be.
My wife worked harder than I did, attempting to corral four children. The solution was that they all learned how to work the booth early on. Who could resist the sales pitch of a cute nine-year-old? Typically there was a vendor courtesy tent set up with goodies for the vendors. The kids learned to locate this rapidly, shamelessly eat everything in sight, and then go off for lunch with Mom. Their sales yielded commissions from Dad, so when they hit the tourist traps of town, they had money to throw around like the little sailors they were.
So that was a vacation in the old days.
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