“We’re cutting short our vacation this year,” an overworked
Italian friend lamented recently. “We’ll probably just go to the
beach for a couple of weeks.”
By U.S. standards, 14 days with nothing to do is quite a decent
spell — or an indecent one, to those in the grip of the work
ethic. For the ever-more-typical American linked to the office by
laptop and cell-phone, two weeks at the beach wouldn’t really be a
vacation anyway.
Europeans do things differently. For months already, this year’s
summer holiday destination has been a major theme of party
conversation, even when (as is often the case) it’s the same place
as the year before: the rustic cottage in the mountains or the
high-rise beach-front condominium.
The cliché is true: people in the Old World are better
than Americans at doing nothing, and not just for a fortnight.
Whoever can get away with it will spend all next month out of town.
That’s why Paris, Rome and Madrid are so famously devoid of natives
in August.
Doing nothing for fun might sound easy, but it’s actually a
learned skill, and one I lack even more than most Americans do.
It’s all my parents’ fault, of course. While my boyhood pals found
relief from suburban monotony at the lake or in the woods, our
family headed for the highways.
One summer when I was 14, we covered most of the Old Confederacy
and several border states in our Chevy Impala, my parents sitting
up front while my two younger brothers and I took the back. Yes, we
had air conditioning, but nothing like the Game Boys or other
high-tech diversions that today’s kids take for granted.
I did have a portable 8-track, the Panasonic “Dynamite 8,” which
I used to subject my family to countless repetitions of the
American Graffiti soundtrack and a Frank Sinatra best-of
compilation. Amazing that my parents put up with this, though I
suppose they were just grateful that I wasn’t listening to Eddie
Money or the Atlanta Rhythm Section.
Virtually every night meant a different Holiday or Ramada Inn,
which was exciting for my brothers, but boring to me (as were most
things at that age, especially when they involved family), and no
doubt exhausting for my parents. Perhaps my dad found his hours
behind the wheel a release of nervous tension, but why did my mom
put up with it?
The essential reason was education. My parents wanted to expose
us to as much as possible of our country, and this entailed
visiting famous tourist attractions as well as less obvious
sites.
One stop on our southern tour was Memphis, which in those
pre-Grisham days was known chiefly for Elvis. The King had been
dead less than a year but already there was an entire mall of
memorabilia shops across the street from his house. Naturally we
toured Graceland, of which I especially remember Elvis’s tombstone,
next to his mother’s in the garden. These were (and still are, I
suppose) of highly polished black stone, presumably marble, with
inscriptions in gold.
A few hours later we drove to a very different part of town to
see the Lorraine Motel, where 10 years earlier James Earl Ray had
murdered Martin Luther King, Jr. — an event as legendary and
remote to me then as the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. The
motel was still in business, but hardly thriving, and the desk
clerk was not too busy to take us up to King’s former room.
Inside was a glass case with a rudimentary display of
photographs, and out on the balcony a plaque, and that was it. No
gift shop, no guided tour, no audiovisual aids. The motel employee
pointed out the direction whence the shots had come, and exchanged
some sad, well-meant words with my father about the need for peace.
(The Lorraine has since been transformed into a civil rights
museum.)
After our visit, my brothers and I heard a few words from our
father about the fickle nature of fame, but we really didn’t need
them. The lesson had been clear on its own. No doubt my parents
felt that this leg of our educational odyssey had paid off.
Now I have a son of my own, but he’s still a little young for
edifying travel, and I don’t have the stamina for long car trips.
Not to mention that gasoline in Italy costs more than three times
what it does in the States. So we’ve opted for a tranquil stay on a
farm only a couple of hours from our house. I still haven’t learned
to do nothing on vacation, though. Otherwise I wouldn’t have
brought my laptop with me, and I wouldn’t be writing this column
right now.
