By Oliver B. Pollak
OCEANSIDE, California — What does family vacation mean? It used to be an oxymoron ranking with giant shrimp, military intelligence, and other improbables. Destination vacations, national parks, beaches, mountains, desert, camping, rv’s, condos, five-star resorts, spas, lodges, ranches with bunk houses, and time shares all compete for our wonderment. We drive, fly, take Amtrak, rent cars.
My parents talked about vacationing in Baden Baden. I read and saw Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice. As a seven-year-old, I played on the beach in Brighton, England. In America it was Palm Springs. The automobile reinforced the nuclear family. My most memorable early vacation was a road trip in 1956 in a 1955 Chevrolet to Carmel and the Redwoods. I still have the scrap book.
Family, machatunim, friends go on destination vacations and celebrations for weddings in Mexico or bar mitzvahs in Jerusalem. They incorporate three generation age spreads, with different experiences, needs and wants.
The dilemma of packing. Early perplexing questions; Which luggage, how many shoes, socks, t-shirts, underwear, shirts, shorts, pants, belts? Check you have enough pills for the duration, dopp kit, named after Charles Doppelt who designed a leather toiletry carrier in 1926. Which back pack, side bag, fanny pack? To do laundry or not to do laundry, that is the question. 100 miles from the house on the way to Winnipeg, OMG, I forgot the clothes hanger with the wedding dress and tuxedo – U Turn.
We are out of the house about 60 days a year. Later this year we travel to Omaha and four more times to Southern California for a 90th and two 75th birthday events and Thanksgiving. That’s 7,000 miles.
This trip now coming to an end involved ten people, three generations, spending 7 days on the cusp of America, in Oceanside, the crashing Pacific surf spraying a few feet away. In addition, we visited Carlsbad, Laguna Woods, Costa Mesa, and Santa Clara where we had additional family. Age range 4 to 74. I was the oldest, with the most perspective. I participated but mostly observed. Watching young cousins, ages 4 to 12, interact, and older cousins interact, and watching wives interact in a kitchen ballet.
I asked the children what was your favorite? Zev age 12 responded, Betty’s Fish House which had a 1960s dune buggy on a VW frame, dreaming of going to Legoland (which was not on the adults’ agenda), and watching tv (with the volume always going up). They had a total of 9 hours of surfing lessons.
Grandparents watching the three grandchildren, worked their way with their children through a selection of ten wines. Food and eating, Home cooked, Restaurant, Take out carefully vetted for fresh, organic, and possible allergens, and stay hydrated.
Travel literature abounds. Lobbies have racks of brochures extolling local attractions. I traveled inside my head. Some people go on vacation and swear off of electronic communication, cellphone, and laptop. My goal was to finish a couple of articles including “Chop Suey in Omaha, 1897-1920.”
Almost everyone brought a book. Erika Just Fall (2016) by Nina Sadowsky. Noah, The Chalk Artist (2017) by Allegra Goodman. Steve likes historical novels, The Trial and Execution of the Traitor George Washington (2015) by Charles Rosenberg, Girl on the Train (2015) by Paula Hawkins, and the current issue of Rolling Stone. Ellen read A Little Life, A Novel (2015) by Hanya Yanagihara on Kindle. Ariel was bookless other than a selection for her four-year-old daughter Dalia, “I did not think about it. I wish I had.” Zev read a Newberry Honor Book, published by Scholastic, My Side of the Mountain (1959) by Jean Craighead George. Their parents, both teachers, had five backup books, and one for reading out loud.
Only three people read books with Jewish content: Karen had The Weight of Ink (2017) by Rachel Kadish and I, Oliver, had the sole non-fiction, Frauen, German Women Recall the Third Reich (1993) by Alison Owing, who is not Jewish. Four of us had the New York Times online. Yael, age 9, gets books from PJ Library, and she is reading a graphic novel, The Adventures of Rabbi Harvey (2006) by Steve Sheinkin.
Returning from a vacation, by car or taxi, about ten miles from the house, Karen and I look at each other and ask, where next?
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Pollak, an attorney and professor emeritus of history at the University of Nebraska Omaha, is a SDJW correspondent now based in Richmond, California. He may be contacted via oliver.pollak@sdjewishworld.com