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Vacation Blues
Summertime is delightful, but (other people's) time off is the pits
Photo by Linda Brinson
First there was one; now there are two little snapping turtles sunning on a rock.
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Published: June 29, 2008
I hate vacation season.
Time was, I couldn't wait for summer vacation. I lived for those long, lazy days. All through the school year, I'd anticipate the "no more pencils, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks" days to come. Ah, the luxury of doing nothing. My retired-Army father might have left marching orders when he left home before I awoke, but once the lawn was mowed or the potatoes were hoed, I could spend the rest of the day riding a horse on a wooded trail; or up in my cousin's tree house, listening to my transistor radio; or sitting on the front porch, watching a thunderstorm blow up. There was no homework to dread, nothing hanging over me.
That was then.
Now, I hate vacation season for a selfish reason: Other people get vacations.
Specifically, the other people who work with me get vacations. At a newspaper, anyone's absence is a problem. We aren't overstaffed to begin with (now less than ever), and the newspaper comes out every day, no matter who isn't here. So when one person on our editorial-page staff is on vacation, none of the rest of us can be gone, and all of us must help to pick up the slack.
This year, everybody in my department has taken or is taking a significant chunk of vacation during the traditional summer season. Rather than the luxury of doing nothing during summer vacation season, those who remain get the burden of doing more than usual.
I will interrupt my whining long enough to say that although I no longer like vacation season, I still love summer. (Just as back in the good old days, I count summer as beginning when school gets out.)
So far, this summer has been good enough to almost make up for the grind of vacation season.
For a month, our younger son was home, his longest visit since he left two years ago. That month is a blur of evenings with the house filled with young people, meals for six or more whipped up on short notice, cookouts and late nights. His girlfriend spent time at our house, and so did our older son and his wife. After not having been to a movie in a theater for about three years, I went twice in the space of a couple of weeks. One weekend, we visited his girlfriend's family at the lake, where we fished and boated and "chilled." Before the water got too low, we ventured down the Dan on a lazy afternoon. He left a week ago, leaving behind a pile of dirty clothes, an unmade bed, two tired parents and a loud silence. Those weeks were hectic, chaotic and simply delightful.
The garden, nudged along by my husband's efforts, has been providing the tastes of the season. There's nothing like fresh, homegrown produce to ease the pain of having to fix supper after a day at work. Lettuce gave way to cabbage as spring waned, and when the heat started to take its toll, we cut the remaining heads and refrigerated them. We've had two cucumbers, and we're into that interminable period of waiting for the tomatoes to ripen. We've had Japanese eggplant, lots of herbs, new potatoes, snap peas and English peas. All is not bliss in the Peaceable Kingdom: Vine borers have been working on the squash, and the deer hit the green beans the other night. But we're holding out hope for what's left of those crops, and the okra and corn look promising.
Deer and bugs notwithstanding, the nature that surrounds us is a source of joy that's especially rich in summer. One of our mysteries has been solved: In April, I wrote about our water garden -- two pools and a waterfall that we built in the backyard -- and marveled at the critters that have taken up residence in it. In particular, I wondered how a baby snapping turtle had found its way into the lower pool two years earlier, and I wondered if it would show up this season.
On the hot afternoon when we were loading up for a river trip, my husband found another tiny snapper at our front door. It looked to be in bad shape, dried out, weary and listless. He placed it on a rock at the edge of the upper pool. He figured that if it had any life left, it might make it to the water. When we returned from canoeing, it was gone. About a week and a half later, he saw two snappers in the lower pool. We've seen both several times since. They sun on a rock, or float and stare at us, with only the tops of their little heads out of the water.
Our biology-major older son told us that female snappers make their nests on ground that may be quite a distance from the water, then lay eggs and leave. When they hatch, the little ones are on their own to find water if they can. Who knows; our two may have come from the farm pond across the paved road. Somehow, they scrabbled their way to our house, and we're glad.
One more good thing about summer: I'm going to take some vacation in about a month. Then I won't hate vacation season, at least for a while.
Linda Brinson is the Journal's editorial-page editor. She can be reached at lbrinson@wsjournal.com.
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