I’m up, the 3 a.m. thing. Hours before we sail off to see my dad I checked up on Top Chef Masters and missed the last episode at Grand Canyon.
Yes, I remember the Grand Canyon from when I was ten. It was the late 1960’s and I knew little of Vietnam or hippies. Dad wore a staid suit and skinny tie (tie clip, too) and had his hair cut really short, and Mom had graduated from matching skirt sets to a yellow pantsuit.
First ever airplane trip, we flew to Phoenix and got a rental car. It had air conditioning, we’d never seen that before and never would. Dad said we had to keep the windows closed or the A/C would never work. It was 112 in the shade and we east coasters were wilting!
Then we got to the southern rim of the Canyon to a cabin with an “air cooling system.” That system consisted of opening the windows on a 112-degree day. It was July 3 and private fireworks went off all night. We all traded beds because we thought another would be cooler.
Then at 6:00 a.m. with no sleep, we stood in line for breakfast while Dad looked over the Canyon and said words like “awesome” and “majestic” and we were just tired, cranky and hot.
Then we drove to Flagstaff without even seeing the Grand Canyon and had A/C in the rooms and a pet raccoon out by the pool. For a ten year-old kid, that was heaven.
I’d love to go back one day with my husband and stay on the north rim and explore a bit. Then I can say things like awesome and majestic and mean them.
We ended up in San Diego for a conference then drove up the Coast to San Francisco and it ended up being a great experience. Just the Phoenix/Grand Canyon part set us off on a rocky beginning.
As we age not only do the days get shorter, the years do as well. It’s been quite some time since I’ve seen my father and I look forward to our brief visit. Seven hours there today, same back on Sunday and my task board for me and my husband and dog care says one thing for Saturday: relax.
This story just came to me. While you might think it sheds a bad light on my childhood, it does not. The fact that I lived in a microcosm and only learned years later that I missed out on the Summer of Love because I was a sweaty kid in Phoenix is precious.
I did know the body count from Walter Cronkite every evening, and that it was imperative that the college students not know that the college president had been on Oppenheimer’s A-Bomb team. And I’d give anything to see the home we practically built decades ago, and have my ashes scattered in my Enchanted Forest someday. I guess you could say I had my own 60’s listening to Frank Sinatra, playing the violin and skinnydipping in the pool with my sister at night.
Who cares about communes and magic mushrooms? I certainly didn’t miss out. And my parents brought me to see Frank, Chairman of the Board, at Carnegie Hall in the 80’s. Dee the Geeky Cook
Cooking with Dee 