Episode 14: Summer Summer Summer Time

[00:00:21] Welcome to 45 left to right podcast. This is episode 14, summer, summer, summer time. [00:00:32] And if you are Gen X or an elder millennial, there is a song that should pop in your head with this title, but I'm not going to sing it. [00:00:43] I am your host, Doris Smith. I am a freelance journalist who likes to tell stories that are high, hopefully relatable to your life. [00:00:56] Ah, Summer break is here. [00:01:01] We survived May and the end of school, end of baseball, band concerts, field trips, and those last minute end of school projects. We have a busy summer ahead of us, which is full of fun. At least that is the plan. [00:01:22] In this episode. I'd like to talk about summer break, summer memories, and whose memories are we really trying to create? [00:01:34] I grew up in Jacksonville, Florida, which is beautiful with the St. John's river running through it and the beach all around. In the summer, though, it is hot and sticky, and as a curly haired girl, my frizz was out of control. [00:01:58] Nearly every summer, my parents would load my brother and I in our big conversion van and drive to the Smoky Mountains, either in North Carolina or Tennessee. [00:02:13] My dad grew up spending his summers in Tennessee with his grandfather, and that had a, you know, a lot of good memories for him. [00:02:23] One time we were driving through western North Carolina and we saw a bunch of rafts going down the Nantahala river. We grabbed some boiled peanuts and sat near the bank, and we watched these rafts go down the last big rapid. [00:02:43] I loved that it was this spur of the moment, shared experience. [00:02:50] Somehow we convinced my parents to sign us up to go whitewater rafting the next day. [00:02:58] It was so much fun. [00:03:02] The water was cold and fast and going down. It felt like we were going down a natural hydro coaster. [00:03:13] I remember being scared and exhilarated at the same time, and for the whole time, I was most likely just over the minimum wait and age to go, so my mom yelled, hold on, Reese, over each big rapid. [00:03:34] This was one of the best times I ever had together with my family. [00:03:41] Ever since we moved to southern California. We head east for two weeks. Every summer. We spend a week in Jacksonville to see my parents and my brother Sean and our nieces. We go to the beach, spend time in the pool, and just relax. [00:04:01] The second week, we head to North Carolina, where we see Jeff's side of the family, his aunt and uncle and cousins from his mom's side, and then aunts and cousins from his dad's side, and they are in Georgia. [00:04:18] His grandparents lived in Black Mountain, North Carolina when they were alive, so he spent a lot of time there. Despite being raised in Colorado, we get to introduce Devin to the beauty of the Smoky mountains, to little creeks where he can look for crawdads, eat the best barbecue in the world, and no one will convince me otherwise. Devon even gets to catch lightning bugs. [00:04:51] If there is a boiled peanut stand on our drive up, we will stop and I get to share another core memory with my family. [00:05:04] These trips haven't always been rosy and smooth, and we have lots of stories of things going wrong. [00:05:14] Devin has gotten pink eye twice. [00:05:18] He had an asthma flare up once and had to be hospitalized for a night. We've had rental car troubles, delayed flights. Then there was the time Devon got norovirus and we gave it to everyone on our trip, including Jeff's grandparents, who were in their nineties. [00:05:41] And of course, the worst was that Jeff's mother passed away from breast cancer on one trip. But I can't talk about that without crying. So we're going to talk about that another time. [00:05:59] Even with all of that, when I think of these trips from when I was a kid and with my own family, I just get warm and fuzzy feelings. [00:06:13] How can you be sad catching lightning bugs? [00:06:18] I have core memories, and I hope Devin does, too. And I don't want to speak for Jeff, but I know he generally has fond memories of all of our summer adventures. [00:06:33] On this episode, we are going to talk about summer breaks, how they came to be, and how we try to cram in so many activities under the guise of creating core memories. [00:06:53] Is this a good thing? [00:07:14] Welcome back to 45 left to right podcast. [00:07:19] It is time for some research. [00:07:21] And you know, I really should have a special song for this section because I'm always gonna have a research section. [00:07:30] So summer breaks are a relatively modern idea for schooling. [00:07:38] When did we start doing this? So the first article is from mental floss by Lucas Riley, written August 21, 2019 and it's entitled why do kids get summers off? [00:07:58] Now, I had heard that kids got summers off because farm kids needed to be home for the harvest, but that is incorrect. Farm kids went to school during the hottest and coldest months and stayed home during the spring and fall when crops needed to be planted and harvested. And that makes absolute perfect sense. [00:08:25] Kids in the cities. [00:08:27] Actually, this is in like, the 1840s, late 19th century. Kids in the cities actually went to school almost all year long, including the summer in 1842. Detroit's academic year was 260 days, which is 80 days more than the average. Now, those are my friends who are teachers. Can you imagine? [00:09:01] The population of cities increased so there were more people living in a smaller area and the cities got really hot. [00:09:14] Imagine all of the brick and concrete in a city. It basically formed a kiln, and it's called the urban heat island effect. [00:09:28] Have you ever been to New York City during the summer? Jeff and I lived, or Jeff lived in New Jersey for a while before we got married, so we spent some time in New York City. During the summer, when you are walking around surrounded by hot asphalt and concrete buildings, you feel like you are baking. [00:09:53] But it's such a cool city. I can't wait to take Devon there one day. [00:10:00] As the cities got denser and hotter, the wealthier families started fleeing to the countryside in the summer. [00:10:09] Since at that time attendance wasn't mandatory, they had empty schools. [00:10:17] And then as workers gained more rights during the industrial revolution and they had shorter work days, leisure became much more important because people had more time for it and people wanted to have a break not only from the heat, but from work and school. [00:10:40] Add to that that there was no air conditioning in schools and no one wanted to be there. [00:10:48] Air conditioning wasn't even invented until 1902, and it wasn't put into schools until much later. [00:10:58] So I'm going to skip to a second article really quickly. [00:11:04] It's from historynet.com and it's just the article is called the history of summer vacation. This is by Sean coming Cunningham, June 30, 2022. Now, I will say he had a definite angle on this article that shrinking school years did not benefit students, but I'm not going to really get into it. But he had some interesting data. [00:11:34] So even though the school beginning and ending times vary from district to district, most states require approximately 180 days of school. [00:11:48] And then summers are just a logical time to take a break. [00:11:54] Actually, Colorado only requires 160 days of school, and then North Carolina, 185, but generally 180 before school became mandatory. [00:12:09] Different cities and states generally had vastly different days in the school year. In New York City, students went to school 248 days in 1842, and that was over the course of 49 weeks, so they did not get much time off. [00:12:32] And then eventually there became like more of a push to have mandatory attendance and for some kind of uniformity. And this was in the 19th century. [00:12:46] So let's say other cities in the state of New York wanted to have mandatory attendance and also wanted to have a 248 day school year. [00:13:00] That was becoming very expensive for the state. So school years shrunk and summer break became more standardized. [00:13:12] So making attendance in school mandatory led to a shorter school year combined with the heat of the summer and voila summer breaks became the norm. For the most part, this all happened mostly in urban schools, and then rural schools followed suit. Though honestly, that schedule didn't really vibe with what worked for them, but they sort of had to go with it. [00:13:48] All right, so back to the mental floss article. [00:13:51] Of course, with a standardized summer break, many businesses saw an opportunity and thus that kind of created a summer vacation biz, which is now one of the country's largest billion dollar industries. [00:14:14] Now, I really don't know how they are coming up with that number and what that is measuring because there are many things that could fall under a summer vacation opportunity. Does this count any leisure trip during the summer? Must it be a family vacation with kids? Is it just trips like cruises or going to Disney or other amusement parks? Is it hotel using hotels? Is this just to popular destinations? Of course, that number is high. [00:14:57] Without a doubt, though with a majority of schools taking a break for the summer, we as Americans try to cram in as much fun as possible. [00:15:11] This is when most people take a family vacation. [00:15:15] We are taking two. At the end of June, we are meeting Jeff's brother and his family in Evergreen, Colorado at their parents home. [00:15:28] And then at the end of July headed east to Florida, Georgia and North Carolina. [00:15:36] Now this is another interesting thing, just about how american families travel and how they choose to travel. And this is from a website called travelpulse.com. and it is like a travel agent travel planning kind of website. [00:15:57] The first 1st article I've got, or it might be the only one. It's called Americans favor domestic family vacations and air travel this summer. This is written by Lori Barati, June 2, 2024. Very recent because I am filming this, recording this on June 12. [00:16:21] So this is from a survey that a company called Alliance Global Assistance USA, which is a travel insurance and assistance company. They surveyed nearly 5000 customers and what they found is 65% of Americans were going to vacation within the continental United States, 17% to Europe, lucky, 10% to Mexico, the Caribbean and Hawaii. Now most of these were going to be or they consider leisure trips or, you know, family oriented vacations. And most people are going to be traveling by air. [00:17:12] 42% said that their summer trips will be with family and 20% are solo trips, 15% are a getaway with friends. Oh, I would love that. To get together with some of my mom friends maybe when our kids are older and then 14% are romantic trips. I have been begging Jeff for a trip to Hawaii for a very long time. One day I'll get it. And of that 87% say that leisure is the priority now for us, since we live far away from our families. Our family vacations are to see family. [00:18:01] We used to really pack it in, but we have eased back for our sanity. [00:18:09] One year we started in Boston for a wedding. And then we drove to Long island to see Jeff's brother. Then to Philadelphia to see my friend claire and her family. Then to DC to see my college friend Kim. Then to North Carolina for our regular trip to see Jeff's family. Then to Charlotte to see our friends. From there, Atlanta to see Jeff's aunts and cousins. And then to Jacksonville, where we collapsed in a pile. [00:18:45] Other years we have tried to visit a new person almost every day. And though we enjoyed visiting with so many people, it was not a vacation, it was a trip. [00:18:59] This is all to say that we are making it more to create these core memories than about seeing everyone we can. I mean, we live in a very nice place to visit so they can come see us. [00:19:18] We are an hour or so from Disney and all of the major amusement parks. We're an hour and a half from beautiful beaches. An hour and a half from Los Angeles, where there's a ton of stuff to do. 2 hours from San Diego, 45 minutes from Big Bear. And I mean, we're charming, right? [00:19:45] Last year I feel like we got it right. If I had detailed the entire trip, I would go way over my self imposed time limit. So here are some highlights. Pool frolicking and floating time in my parents pool. Boogie boarding in Jacksonville beach and St. Simon's island. Floating down the cool and completely clear ichituckne river. Something I have wanted to do with jeff for years. [00:20:25] Diving at the source of the Itchituckne river. Fishing in St. Augustine with some sea turtle sightings. [00:20:34] North Carolina barbecue. Searching for crawdads with cousins, catching those lightning bugs. Just an amazing trip. [00:20:47] Of course, Devin will probably remember something really mundane as the highlight. But honestly, even though sometimes we try to impose memories onto him, like, wasn't floating down the river fun? [00:21:07] We can't control what he is going to enjoy and remember. [00:21:14] The issue is that sometimes I feel like we cram a lot into every summer because we feel like we have this limited time creating memories for Devin. We want him to experience all kinds of new things. [00:21:33] But I wonder if this is necessary. [00:21:37] I'm already looking at our planned summer this year and personally I am feeling overwhelmed. I don't want Devin to be bored. I want him to do some fun camps. I want to recreate some of the magic from last year. I want him to catch lightning bugs, so to speak. I want him to look back on this summer and store it away for later as a good memory. [00:22:26] Welcome back to 45. Left to right podcasts gonna have a conclusion here with a story and some reflection. [00:22:38] Last summer, we spent a week in Evergreen, Colorado at Jeff's childhood home. [00:22:46] His parents passed away recently, his mom in 2022 and his dad in 2023. So going back to the house can be hard. [00:22:58] We had a wonderful time, though, and I feel like we reclaimed some joy there. [00:23:06] Colorado is stunning in the summer, and we had a nice full circle moment. [00:23:16] Devon was finally old enough to go whitewater rafting. We went down a class two three part of Clear Creek outside of Idaho Springs. Devin and Jeff wore wetsuits. I went without. I don't like them. And I rode in the front. [00:23:38] Yes, I was soaked and cold. My fingertips were numb for several days. And I loved it. Devon was right between us, and I said many times, just like my mom. Hold on, Devin. I was ready to jump in after him if he fell in, but he stayed put, even writing the words to this script. [00:24:07] I feel happiness and exhilaration. [00:24:12] At the end of the trip, as we were getting into the van, Deven said, can we do that again? And we said, sure, of course. We can do it again someday. [00:24:25] And Devin clarified, no, can we do it? Can we do this again today, like this afternoon? [00:24:35] So I thought Devin would easily say that Whitewater rafting was his favorite part of the trip. It was mine. [00:24:45] If you ask him, though, his favorite part of the trip was driving up the 14,265 foot Mount Evans because we drove up in his gpause Nissan frontier pickup truck. Devin loves cars, and he has an encyclopedic knowledge of most of them. He can tell you almost by year what rental car we have had for each trip. Like on this trip in 2021, we rented a black 2018 Nissan versa. Mom and dad didn't like it because of its supposed driver assistance. I'm not joking. It's impressive. [00:25:39] But my memory from this trip will always be the whitewater rafting because I had waited for years to take Devin. It is something that Jeff and I have done together in almost every place that we've lived. Those are my memories, and those are important, too. [00:26:04] So here's the thing. [00:26:06] We put a lot of emphasis on creating these core memories and creating the magic. Otherwise, we want to bottle up every second of every day, and we want everything to be rosy always for our children. And this is nothing new. Good parents have always generally wanted their children to have good memories, especially in our childhood, but I think we have to let them process things the way they are going to process them. [00:26:47] I think the reason I remember whitewater rafting and boiled peanuts is that it wasn't a planned thing. [00:26:57] In fact, it was the most spontaneous thing that we ever did as a family. [00:27:03] I remember the feeling of it mostly just spending time with my stinky brother and my parents. They weren't stinky, I'm sure at this time my parents were probably really stressing over this family vacation, and I enjoy just enjoying a treat that's unique to the area, or at least to the south. [00:27:31] I don't have a conclusion, really, because I never do. Other than when you are stressed about creating magic this summer and creating these so called core memories, remember that your kids are going to love something completely random and unplanned about the trip. So maybe the core memories we are creating are our own. [00:28:10] Thank you for listening to 45 left to right podcast. In the interest of of a summer break, my podcast episodes will be a little less frequent, maybe every other week. I had a hard time getting this one done on my regular schedule, and I don't want the quality of the podcast to suffer in the interest of sticking to a regular schedule. But you can stay abreast of everything on my new website, 45 leftorrightpodcast.com, where not only can you find scheduling updates, you can find bonus content with extra stories and pictures and insight on the blog page. I'm also on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, and you can find links to all of that also on my website. [00:29:11] I hope everyone's summers are getting off to a good start. I'm actually getting this episode done while Devin is in soccer camp. Thanks so much for listening and bye for now.