Memories of Vacations Past

Isn't it funny how our memories affect our lives? Most of us only remember the good things that have happened in our lives. Special occasions, birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, promotions, the list is long. How may of us long for the simple life we enjoyed as children? Little responsibility, joyous times, living and learning every minute of every day. Time stood still for hours and days if we so chose. The meaning of life was evident and simple, so simple we can no longer comprehend the answer as adults.

We are now caught in what we choose to call the real world. Our lives are so entangled in making a living and being successful that we have forgotten how to enjoy the simple things in life. Instead of sitting on the front porch enjoying conversation with our friends and neighbors, we spend hours in chat rooms on the internet. Instead of working in the yard, we have turned our homes into fortresses and yards into tiny patches of grass and landscaping, rarely venturing outside to enjoy the real world outside. Does life have to be this way? Is this life? The answers are endless and yet non-existent. We have created this world we live in, yet we look back in time for joyous memories to justify our mundane existence chasing our tails to make a living, trying to be like our parents, yet knowing we could never match their understanding and patience in this world. Is the world now more cruel, or have we just changed the way we look at life and how we live it.

I doubt that we can match the wonderful memories of our childhood. The world is different. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't try! Our children deserve the same type of memories that we so relish in our lives. Life shouldn't be so difficult that we forget how we got here. Simple pleasures are priceless, keeping up with the Jones' isn't.

On a recent trip back to the old hometown to visit my mother, she broke out the old photo album. Getting up there in years (she just turned 89), fearing our family history would be lost forever if something ever happened to her, she wanted our family history to be carried on by her youngest son. It wasn't a job that I was particularly interested in, yet in going through the old album, I realized that we, brought up poor but proud, had a unique place in history. We are a family.

The pictures of great-grandfathers horse and buggy, grandfathers first Model T, my fathers first car, and the picture of me with my first car, a 1965 Chevy Impala brought back memories of a time lost, yet held together by a dusty old photo album hidden in my mothers attic. Memories of my childhood crashed around me like waves in the ocean, taking me back to simpler times. Times such as a family vacation when I was around eight years old to the Grand Canyon. We always took a two week family vacation throughout my childhood. My parents saved for this vacation for a entire year and took us to places that they felt would be important to our education and future lives. This particular year was the trip to the wild west from central Illinois to see the Grand Canyon, the Petrified Forest, Hoover Dam, and Mount Rushmore, a lot of driving and sightseeing for two short weeks. Yet we seemed to have time to stop at roadside attractions such as the meteor crater along Interstate 40 in Arizona and the Jackrabbit, it too along I-40.

Ah, the Jackrabbit, it was a little roadside attraction with a ridiculous giant sized concrete jackrabbit with a saddle on it for tourists to get their pictures taken on. Inside was picture post cards of jackalopes, a strange combination of jackrabbit and antelope that a eight year was naïve enough to believe was going to hop around the corner any time. They also sold gasoline, (I think for around 25 cents a gallon) drinks, and the same type of tourist trap trinkets that were and may still be popular. My father had his picture taken on the giant jackrabbit, looking ridiculous, yet proud. I remember he tried to convince the whole family to get their pictures taken, but I don't remember why we chose not to. I didn't realize until I saw the picture of my father on that ridiculous jackrabbit, taken so many years ago, that these are the things childhood memories are made of. That time spent with my family was precious, from the views at the Grand Canyon to the majesty of Mount Rushmore, simple things once enjoyed, yet lost from memory in a world gone awry.

My wife and I now live in beautiful northwestern Arizona, only about a one hundred fifty mile drive from the Jackrabbit. We drove by the Jackrabbit on a recent trip to eastern Arizona. The Jackrabbit is still open, nearly forty years later, looking a little worse for wear than I had remembered. The giant jackrabbit is still sitting in the same place where my father's picture was taken, providing pictured memories for yet another generation of adventurous vacationing Americans. They still sell drinks and gas, (now for $3.49 a gallon), and tourist trap trinkets that look like leftovers from our first visit. Some things really never change.

My picture was taken riding the jackrabbit. It is now framed together with the picture of my father taken nearly forty years ago. Corny? Maybe. Memories, forever in our hearts and minds are priceless!