Vacation: Time to remember what’s important

I wonder who invented vacations? Mr. Marriott? Mr. Stuckey? The labor unions? Maybe it was a solitary medieval serf who just woke up one morning, picked up his walking stick, packed some gruel and told his family they were not working that week. They just got in the family cart and headed out to the jousting tournament. My man, we owe you our eternal gratitude.

For each of the last 25 years, my family and five other families-all of whom used to live in Oak Park-have gone to Watervale near Frankfort, Mich. to spend the first full week of August. The setting is like an Impressionist painting with the blues and greens and yellows of water, trees and sand. We golf, play tennis, climb Baldy, the biggest sand dune, and hang out at the beach. In the evenings we gather at one of the cabins and discuss the events of the day and our lives. Released from our electronic tethers, everyone sleeps a little later. Maybe we drink and eat a little more than usual. Conversations last a little longer. Naps are re-discovered. You have more time to reflect. Life slows.

This time and this place have become special to all of us.

You think about the passage of time. Can it be that our children-17 in all-have grown from babies to adults? Why, some of them this year even have babies of their own. It seems not that long ago that my boys were playing in the sand with their little plastic pails and shovels, and now they’re hitting a golf ball 50 yards past mine off the tee (OK 75 yards). Instead of talking about day care for our kids, we’re talking about day care for their kids. Too few cars have been replaced by too many. Mini-golf replaced by real golf. We used to carry the kids up the dunes, but it won’t be long before inevitably they will need to help us make those sandy ascents. Each vacation becomes an annual signpost for life’s journey.

Vacations also help us remember what is important. Freed of TV and Internet access, the cacophony of popular culture, presidential politics and sports can barely be heard. So the polar ice cop melted a little more today. So the latest poll shows Obama slightly behind/ahead in Virginia. So Michael Phelps won another gold medal. Who really cares? At Watervale, you confuse Wednesday with Thursday, and the big decision of the day is whether to grill or go into Frankfort for dinner.

Friday afternoon, my oldest, Chris, and I decide to play a quick 18 holes before dinner. We go off the back nine, and no one is on the course. Chris notes that this is probably his last round of golf before his wife Sarah delivers their first baby (and our first grandchild) early next month. That thought lingers in my mind as Chris and I zip around the course playing our best round of the vacation. There’s not a cloud in the sky. The daylight begins to fade and the shadows lengthen on a late summer day in northern Michigan. I want to say something profound to mark the occasion, but everything I think of seems a little too sentimental or not quiet right. I know Chris is thinking the same things I am. Sometimes there is eloquence in silence.

We just miss a birdie on the last hole and tap in for par. I put my arm around his shoulder as we walk off the green. Father and son. A good round. A good day. A good week. Life is good on vacation at Watervale.