My Summer Vacation

In just a couple weeks most of our kids will be back to school. I don’t know if this is still something grade school children and youth do at the beginning of the term, but it certainly was a ritual when I was growing up so long ago. It was the writing of the What I Did on My Summer Vacation essay.

Let me preface this by saying I grew up in a small North Georgia town with one older sister. My parents had moved there from Wisconsin in time for me to start Kindergarten and my sister to start first grade. This meant all our relatives were, literally, a thousand miles away. So, guess what our summer vacation was each and every summer?

Yes, you would be correct. We travelled the long, non-interstate route to Wisconsin to visit both sets of grandparents in Merrill, Wisconsin and to help my paternal grandparents do the backbreaking work of hauling in enough hay to last through the Wisconsin winter on their dairy farm.

My essay was the same each and every year. Oh, there were highlights – the summer I got to start driving the tractor; the summer my cousin and I unloaded the whole trailer of bales by ourselves (a feat my grandfather praised us for even though I am sure he had to restack many of those bales we just couldn’t seem to get in there tight enough); playing my Mother’s old 78’s on the record player she used to have at my other Grandmother’s and learning to appreciate the music of the 40’s and 50’s which I still dearly love; learning to ride a bike on the farm; going to summer concerts by the town band at the local band shell; getting a new boomerang that sailed out over the local lake and did not come back!

Other kids went to Disneyland or the new and closer Disneyworld. I went to Wisconsin – land of Holsteins and cheese. Each and every summer, this is what we did, that is until my Grandmother got sick and could no longer help my Grandfather. The farm was sold. They kept a small portion of it and built a house there. Now I watched someone else go and come from that farm house, but they were city folks and didn’t really know much about dairy farming.

We did finally head to new destinations. We went out West, with Grandparents in tow, to the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and Yosemite. We went up the East coast to Cape Cod. And, finally, yes finally, I got to go to Disneyworld. It was great. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but for all the excitement, it couldn’t beat either of my Grandparent’s houses for it was there that I learned how to drive a tractor, ride a bike, appreciate music, and live in relationships even if throwing a boomerang is still not something I have mastered.

It was there I learned that I was loved and could be forgiven, something I only found out later that many people never realize. It was this love that made it so easy to understand the love and forgiveness of God for me in Jesus Christ because I had already seen unconditional love everyday of my life through my parents and grandparents. Sure, the other destinations of my classmates could entertain, but they all fell short of teaching the things that made me who I am today.