Names were ticked off lists, seats were filled, and we headed off for the hour-long drive to the set location.

Hardhome.

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I had done what was right, I called my assigned roommate to discuss things… to be told she wanted a single. Yeah.. I wasn’t moving out before I even got there! She could deal. (note: she left her stuff in the room for about a month, then finally moved out. I never saw her.)

Moving day arrived. I had a duffle bag, a small trunk for paperwork, and maybe 2 boxes of things. I wasn’t too worried because going home was going to be easy. It was decided I would get the truck, and my sister would be ok on her campus. So she and I put my gear into the bed of the little pickup, hugged good bye, and off I went.

By myself. Mom and Dad were working that day. They weren’t even home when I left. I had a map, and had remembered a bit of the drive from my interview the winter prior. That was it. Cranked up the tunes and headed for I-4. I knew ONE person at the school : a family friend who taught Marine Biology. A proper adult. Sure I would be fine, right? John’s there if I run into any issues.

I got to campus, was told where to park, where to do all the registration stuff, and where to get my dorm assignment.

Grabbed my keys, sorted out my room, and called home 3 days later when my phone line was hooked up.

Not quite what today’s teens get!

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But there was the other side of the Lake. No skiing allowed, and a speed limit. Many more residential docks, so traffic was controlled. Us kids could go dragging, which was nothing other than being pulled behind the boat via a ski rope. No rafts, just us in our lifejackets.

The ORANGE ones. Bulky beasts, with uncomfortable straps and an evil clasp that would bite your fingers trying to undo it. There was no sinking happening in those things!

But first, after the older people had pushed the boat around the skiing side of the lake, we had to get to the other side. This titular path was through a tunnel. One of those corrugated metal pipes, holding up the road overhead. The kind with the great echoes! For a special treat, the tunnel seat was invented. It wasn’t an actual seat, but more of an area between the two front seats, lined with wooden strips. It was coveted!

Sitting there was special because Gpa said it was, and Gpa speaks true.* Perched on the seat, legs dangling, and sipping orange juice from a can while we shouted and honked the horn.

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It may not seem all that exciting, but anything is fun when you’re three.

*mostly.

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Tune in soon for my next tale from Westeros!

We laughed as my hair went bone-straight as soon as we hit the jetway. We always hoped Gpa didn’t miss the exit of LAX, as we really didn’t need to drive around it twice. Someone always asked if we knew where we were as we neared the house, but the park on the corner and the house with the tree growing through the balcony were always the best clue. The smell of gardenias near the car port. There was the annual family photo on the big sofa, my sister sat on Uncle Mark’s knee.

But none of that was “movable.” Those were for there, locked into specific places. But one tradition came back years — decades — later. A song. I had flown out to visit my brother, and he had found it. The song. The song that was played during the car ride from the airport every summer. The song my little stuffed animals danced to.

In all its glory… Silver Connection’s Fly Robin Fly.

https://youtu.be/wC_kCnm3GYQ?is=u6_GsuWQSM4cRGoQ

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So I said yes. And I got it! I was going to Westeros.

But first: Training Day.

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After school and on weekends, tho the situation was different. It was…boys. There were no tea parties with this crowd. Dad put up a basketball net over the garage and painted a box-ball square. But across the street was the open yard… an expanse of uninterrupted grass. That meant only one thing in the mid 80s with a bunch of kids : football. I was terrible at it. And it didn’t matter!

A minor issue in that neighborhood was a lack of sidewalks. No barrier between games and the street. Not every game was neatly contained within the confines of a single front yard. Balls would go flying, kids would go flying… and cars were loud. Someone as if by magic, always knew when cars were coming.

CAR!! And everyone would run back to the nearest yard.

Then play resumed. Just 6 kids of all ages, throwing footballs, shooting hoops, and trying not to misfire the red ball.

I moved into my current house 14 years ago, and during that time have watched the neighborhood kids play. The boys next-door still kick a soccer-ball around when they’re home together, running across my front yard to fetch a bad pass. There has been a parade of little kids on bikes lately, making the best of dry weather before school starts again. It’s a quiet street, but I never mind the sounds of kids outside playing.

Game On.

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The ritual of The Muppet Show. Sitting in front of the tv in pajamas, hair washed and brushed out… the only “late night” televison I was allowed. I mean, ok, it was maybe 7:30pm…! It was special at the time, really, as the whole family would sit together and laugh. I have no recollection of who the guest was, or anything that went on…I just know we were watching.

But there was a wiggly tooth in my mouth. It had been loose for a while. My first. As I sat there, watching Kermie and Fozzie, that tooth kept wiggling. And wiggling. Until, boom! Out it popped!

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This became A Big Deal.

I was scooped up and carried across the street to show the neighbors!

And then it was bedtime. The tooth tucked into a rather adorable little pillow pocket, and under my pillow… to be replaced by a shiny quarter!

I never did wake up to find “the tooth fairy.”

This is how I ended up half scowling at Mark Addy for a day.

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And then it hit : The First Assignment. We knew it was coming, and we dreaded it. Worse than the theme from A Christmas Story… “What I did on My Summer Vacation.”

Ugh. Again? Really? It didn’t seem fair. We spent a few months in complete freedom from homework and lessons, and now that became homework?! Not realizing at the time exactly how these assignments truly highlighted severe socio-economic disparities, we got to work. Sometimes it was just a paragraph. Sometimes the dreaded, “Tell the class!” One year we had to actually make a magazine/newspaper article.. ok, I made mine from photo album pages and I still have it..

As an educator, I can sit and find reasons for this assignment. But as a kid? The horrors were real.

So in that time-honored tradition, this is what I did on my summer vacation:

On the Saturday evening my friend and house sitter came over. We unloaded all her WFH gear, and ran through the routine for the dogs and how to keep my house cool in the upcoming heat. Off to the airport early the next morning, and I did what any self-respecting person from NI does at the airport : pint. After a very short flight to Edinburgh (flight time was 35 minutes), I landed and met my friend and host. Onto the tram! Onto the train across the Forth of Firth into Fife! I would like to say we did exciting things. We did not. We walked the Kirkcaldy esplanade, ate a lot, watched Andor and Rogue one, and worked in the garden. Met up with friends (including a college friend I hadn’t seen since 2012!) Lounged, and when my Star Wars con was cancelled, had a photoshoot on the beach in my cosplay. After a nice, relaxing week, it was back to the train, the tram, and the airport to pop home and start calling my students. THEIR summer vacation includes tutoring.

I do wonder, did my teachers back then really want to know we sat around and played backgammon for the 53rd block of LaBrea?

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So.. what did YOU do on your summer vacation?

Don’t text us, we’ll text you.

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We were also left to our own devices, safely tucked away within shouting distance. Mom and Dad got on with their day, while little brains did big imaginings. And chaos. There is always chaos. In the midst of creating new things was an idea. Probably Jason’s. We were building fun cars and such and wouldn’t it be better to actually DO something with them? After all, we DID have the nice smooth floors. Racing was a bit boring after a while, so the Derby was created.

The Smashup Derby.

Build a “car” and roll them AT SPEED into the others. The last car standing was the champion, and we could start over. But wait, there’s more! While Jason and I built things that somewhat resembled actual cars, our sister was on a whole different level. Y’all remember that thick rectangular base, right? Well she used that and built a brick house on wheels. Of course we had no rules for what entered the Derby outside of it had to roll. She build the strongest fortress and just slapped a couple sets of wheels on the base. Done. Invincible. While we watched our little cars explode into bits, that house stood stalwart amidst the LEGO carnage.

Where’s the fun in THAT? This was the SMASHUP Derby, and by gods we were going to have smash! So we fired off that sucker into the baseboards until it died.

And then we did it all over again!

I am quite sure that when we moved, there were LEGO bricks under the furniture and in the back corners.

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Sparklers. Fireworks. Homemade ice cream. Jumping in the pool after dark. These were staples of my childhood 4th of July. Nothing special, just a standard suburban celebration. I’m pretty sure I liked the ice cream the most!

But sometimes we were at “The Lake,” a waterski community in the California desert. Celebrations hit differently there. Frozen yogurt replaced ice cream, but there was Oma’s taco salad, the Cool Whip ™ flag cake, and sometimes Gpa would grill a flank steak. After a typical morning of early starts to get the “good water” and games of backgammon by the pool, we’d escape the midday sun to go prep the food. Smashing the corn chips (cron chips.. but that’s a different story) was always fun, and it was my job to help place the fruit on the cake.

That was not the big event. The community put on a great fireworks display after dark. The temperatures dropped to “not boiling” and everyone with a boat headed to the water. We all piled in and went to find a good spot to drop anchor, awaiting the show right above our heads.

Then it happened. I had to pee. Oh bother. Panic set in. I was notorious as a kid for bad timing, but usually there was a place to stop. Not here. We were in the middle of a lake, surrounded by other boats, and there WAS no going back. Now I cannot quite remember which adult was next to me, but it was clear there was one, and only one solution. Off came the shorts and I slipped over the side of the boat, holding onto the edge. Business done and I scrambled back over the side, grabbed a towel and sat back to watch the show.

Happy 4th, and remember, when ya gotta go, ya gotta go!

One afternoon my Mom came home (hi, Mom!) to find the older kids in the neighborhood staring and pointing at a thing on the side of the road. They thought it was a cobra! (Not quite common in the Orlando suburbs) Mom went over to take a look and it was a slightly injured hognose. Harmless. So, much to the shock and horror of the teens, Mom scooped it up and popped it into one of the myriad tanks in the garage to be kept safe until the morning when it could be taken to safety.

But did I know any of this? No. I came home later in the day from school. I knew nothing until the next day.

Saturday morning. I was at the kitchen table eating my Cheerios and reading the funny pages. Dad walks in from behind me and shoves said snake in my face, “Hey, look!”

That’s one way to wake up on the weekend!

Gpa had decided we were going to take a trip to San Luis Obispo to see Hearst Castle. He sent the guidebook and said there would be a test.

A TEST?! “Mom, is he serious?” Definite maybe. We decided to be prepared, as anything could happen. It turned out there was not, in fact, a test prepared so we quizzed HIM.

Road trip time! Summer. PCH. And a very nicely air conditioned town car. Think Cadillac or Lincoln Continental. On the way we drove to Pismo Beach and decided we would take a drive ON the beach. Totally acceptable, everyone did it. While I was watching the sea I heard Oma say, “Jack, I think we should turn around now. There are only Jeeps out here.”

Okay. Gpa started to turn the car, and we got stuck. Facing up the beach. With the tide coming in. OOOPS.

Now one thing you should know about my grandpa is that he did NOT make mistakes. And if he did, they were firmly recorded in family lore. The Grease Gun incident was famous. We all hopped out of the car to check the situation but my sister grabbed her camera. There was no way this was going undocumented! Photographic evidence secured, we tried to compact the sand under the tires.

We were rescued before the tide hit by a nice man with a tow chain, and off we went… vowing to make sure the Pismo Beach Incident was never forgotten.

I miss you, Oma and Gpa.

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But this is FLORIDA. There are critters everywhere. Ants, mosquitoes, lizards my brother would catch with snares made of monofilament line. We let them go! Box turtles the dog would corner. Palmetto bugs. Cockroaches. And snakes.

Why did it have to be snakes?

My bedroom, shared by all three kids for a few years, was at the far end of the hall. I went to get something, saw something like a moving figure eight in the middle of the floor. Black. I noped out. Right out. I swore I had seen something, so told the first person I found. Everyone went back to look.

Nothing. Not a thing.

Kids make up stories, right? Was I SURE I saw something? Yes. I was sure. I DEMANDED it. Small, but bitchy, even in those days. I didn’t let it go.

So off my Dad and brother go to look again. Nothing. I wasn’t taking that for a resolution. Back they went and started pulling the beds and furniture away from the walls.

And there it was! I was right! A little black racer. Harmless, and no idea how to get OUT of the house. We popped him in a terrarium to keep safe until we found a dog-free zone to let him free.

And the last thing I remember was my parents talking.. “Maybe that was the rustling under our bed last night…”

I rode my bike to school with my sister and some friends. But that morning I was alone. Sis was sick, and I was late while we decided what to do. So alone I went, on a warm and sunny Miami morning. School tee shirt on, and shoelaces tied (it may have been Velcro…) and away I went!

Down to the first crossroads, looked both ways, and safely across (ok, it was a quiet suburban street) and BAM! I hit a gravel patch on the edge of the road. Sidewalks? Nah, we didn’t have those! All of a sudden I was flat on my back with my right ankle caught between the front tire and the frame. My lovely glittery plum-colored 10-speed had failed me.

What did I do? I cried! It hurt, I was upset! Did I mention quiet suburban streets? No cars came by, so there I was flat on the side of the road with a huge decision to make. I extricated myself from my bike and checked my ankle. A small cut, but my sock would cover that right up. Do I go home so Mom can check if I cut my back that was a bit sore? Wait. Mom?!! She hates blood!

Back on my bike! To the fair!