What is it about vacation that draws me into a state of melancholy? Is it knowing that the best part is the anticipation – when we talk about the things we’re going to do around the breakfast table months in advance? Is it keeping one eye on the calendar the whole time no matter how long we are gone? Is it understanding that nothing lasts forever? Is it the fear of facing personal shortcomings that keep me from spending time…
Vacation. In America, most of us get a couple of weeks a year to unwind, see new sights and recharge. We’re an industrious lot. Two weeks is all we need to be highly productive workers for the other fifty. Europeans, however, get something like six months off a year. They’re not American though, and so they don’t get it. To make a mark in this world means keeping your nose to the grindstone. Ben Franklin said so. Recharging is for…
We’re at the beach. Vilano Beach in North Florida – on the Atlantic, near where I was born and raised. Before I met my wife, who is from NJ, she’d only been to Florida once on a college road trip. But after the Blizzard of 96 when we received 3′ of snow in 24 hours in North Jersey, I told her that I had to leave. I was done with winter. So we migrated from the Garden State to the…
