The Mountains

When I was a child, every summer we would go to the Catskill Mountains for a two week vacation. The ride up there seemed endless, like we were going to the other end of the world. We would stack up our belongings between my sister and myself, as the car trunk would be full. I can still envision my father's hat on top of the pile. Men wore hats in those days. As we arrived at the hotel, the air smelled so fresh and the cooking smells from the kitchen hung in the air. Most of the time the dad's went home for the work week and returned on Friday night. The question of the day was "how long did it take you to get here"? The women wore gowns on Saturday night and even wore mink stoles. No one seemed to care that it was 90 degrees out. Times were simple and having fun meant running up and down the hallway floors banging on peoples doors. There was swimming and shuffleboard and dance classes. I tried to continue this tradition with my own children, going to the mountains each winter for many years. It made me smile to see them repeat the same activities that I did, even running through the halls. Unfortunately times changed and the simple fun that we used to have changed with them. Video games replaced hiking. We became too high tech to enjoy old fashioned fun.