AN OLD-FASHIONED VACATION by r2

With gas prices rising, our plans had to change. They had to. No ifs, ands or buts.

We couldn’t do what we did last vacation. It was just too expensive. The rest of the family didn’t like it. Not one bit. But hey, we could still have fun. Couldn’t we? Well, couldn’t we?

“Nah, this is just gonna suck. It really is,” said Ringo, the youngest of my little brothers.

“Watch your mouth,” I said.

Even though he wasn’t around just then, I didn’t want any of us to get Dad all riled up.

“I’ll give you a smack,” Dad always says when any of us cusses. That’s the warning. After that, it’s a slap to the back of the head for us boys. Nothing for Sissy, ‘cuz she’s a girl and never says half the stuff us guys say, anyway. But in the big picture, it really ain’t fair if you get right down to it.

But right now I didn’t want to worry about what was fair and not fair. I mean hell, it wasn’t fair for them Arabs to be drivin’ gold plated, diamond crusted Rolls Royces while we had to mess up our vacation plans ‘cuz they were so greedy we couldn’t even afford gasoline anymore.

But I didn’t want to get Dad started on that either. I just wanted to break the news to my brothers and sister and get them all calmed down before Dad got home. Since Mom died giving birth to Ringo, it wasn’t hard to get Dad upset. And then the drinkin’ would start and none of us could talk to him for days. Or he’d get all cranky and yell at us or give us a smack for any little thing. All except Sissy, of course.

As the oldest one in the family, I felt a responsibility to make sure us kids had fun and Dad had fun this vacation. Truth be told, I didn’t like it any better than Ringo, but I didn’t let on.

“Dad says we’re gonna have an old-fashioned vacation. Like he did when he was a boy. It’ll be great. I promise.”

“So what’re we gonna do?” Big John asked. He was two years younger than me but already outweighed me by fifty pounds and was about three inches taller.

“I don’t know, but Dad has something in mind.”

“This blows,” Ringo said.

“Now goddamnit, Ringo, just stop your cussin’. I mean it,” I said.

“'Blows’ ain’t cussin. I didn’t mean it the way you thought. I meant, blows, like blows chunks.”

“Whatever.”

So we waited until Dad got home. There was grumbling, sure, but it died down and we played some lame-o word game that Sissy wanted to play. The boys in the family are pretty good about doing things Sissy wants to do since she’s the only girl in the family and there aren’t too many girls her age around.

“Okay gang, we’re going on a camping trip,” Dad said as he came through the front door. He was a big man, and when he was happy, it just sort of filled the room with happy.

“No use trying to go anyplace without gas,” Dylan, Big John’s twin said. Okay, maybe he didn’t feel it. I held my breath for a minute thinking he was going to change the direction of Dad’s mood.

“You’re wrong,” Dad said. “Just wait.”

So we gathered up our sleeping bags and all our other gear and hiked out of our housing development. We had to hop a fence and then we slogged across a cornfield that had been harvested, hopped another fence, then into the woods.

The woods went on for about a half a mile and then there was a railroad track, another field of some sort, weeds it looked like to me, a creek and a scattering of houses just before a gravel road.

We were about three-quarters of the way through the woods when we stopped.

Dad had all of us boys gather dry twigs and leaves. He found a fallen tree and chopped it into logs and smaller pieces for kindling. When it grew dark, we lit the tinder and eventually got a big fire going.

It took awhile, but I have to admit we had fun.

We all sat in a semi-circle at far edge of the woods and watched the house burn down across the creek. We could hear the screams from where we sat, a half a mile away. I admit, burning down the house of an Outsider was a lot quicker with gasoline, but there was something to be said about doing it the old fashioned way.