A Slice of Life: Family Vacation

Ever since I wrote about Aunt Betty, I've felt nostalgic for the vacations my family spent with her family in Ocean City, Maryland. They started around 1974 and went until about 1983...after that, we grew up and grew apart.

We looked forward to Ocean City vacations all year. Usually, we'd go for a week in August. My parents would split the cost of renting a unit with my aunt and uncle. The units were big enough to hold us all comfortably: my parents, me, my brother, my aunt, uncle and two cousins. We never stayed in the same place twice...that was part of the fun.

Here are my parents with my aunt and uncle.


I love everything about the ocean: the sight, the smell and the sound of the surf. On Sunday morning and every morning afterward that I could manage it, I would get up just before sunrise to go down to the beach and watch the sun come up. Most of the time I went alone because I couldn't persuade anyone else that the sight was worth it.


There was always something to do, rain or shine, day or night. On a cloudy, cooler day, we'd walk along the beach and collect shells or go down to the arcade on the boardwalk.

On sunny, hot days, look out! We'd be in the water, body surfing or riding the waves on rented rafts. These pictures are of first me and then my brother riding a raft.



We didn't need TV at all. In the evening, there was lots of ways to entertain ourselves:







Going to the boardwalk at night was always fun. There were two fantastic artists there. One sculpted in sand and I know his artwork has been on the internet. The other worked in chalk crawings. Both artists' work was religious and beautiful.

Other things we'd do on the boardwalk: shop, visit the arcades and play games, and go to the amusement parks. Those were always a lot of fun! I enjoyed taking my young cousin on the scariest rides or in the haunted houses. She loved going with us!

Our most favorite night time activity, though, was a big roundof UNO. The more of us that played, the more fun it was and we had some side-splitting times with the game!


Ah, those were the days!

A Slice Of Life: My Best Friend

I met my first best friend in junior high, 8th grade to be exact. I'd spent a year of misery in the enriched program of the 7th grade. I was a pariah and had just one friend, another outcast. I didn't fit in because I was just too emotionally immature. The other kids made fun of me and I crumpled. By the end of the year, I was begging to get out of the enriched program and back on the regular track.

That was where I met my first best friend. She was already hanging out with a sweet but terribly insecure girl and the three of us became fast and true friends. Having a friend makes life bearable in school. We laughed together, gossiped together, shared our notes and our dreams and our resentments of authority and parents.

When we were in junior high, anything could give us the giggles and I'd laugh so hard I'd collapse against a locker, practically in tears. Other people would look at us like we had six heads but I didn't care--I had friends now. My friend's parents had emigrated to this country after escaping the Communist regime in eastern Europe; I told my friend all about my family.

We shared a few adventures together, one day "breaking out" of school right after lunch and heading for downtown. We did nothing that day but walk around talking. It was better than being in school!

I wish I could say that I'm still best friends with her but we drifted apart a few years after high school. I lost touch with her until very recently. Two years ago, I got her email from our class reunion organizer and I wrote to her. She wrote back, very excited to hear from me but said she had to go out of the country for a few weeks. She said she'd write me back but she never did. I tried to email her once or twice but never got an answer back.

Oh well...I get it. Sometimes you just can't go back to the way it used to be.

Here is my first best friend with another classmate. We went back to visit our old teachers at junior high one day. I took the picture.

Then and Now

Today John Lennon would have been 67. Sixty seven!!!

This song is ageless. There's always been a war. There always will be. I remember when this song came out at the height of the Vietnam War. I was so sick of all the killing and seeing soldiers' bodies being carried off the screen. Maybe that's why coverage of the Iraq war seems so limited? We're not allowed to see bodies in bags or in coffins as they come off the planes anymore ... why? So we don't get as sick of it now as we did then?

If only...

Imagine....