A Letter From The Editor
AUGUST 2016 PA R K E R C O U N T Y T O D AY
D
4
o you find yourself feeling a little sad
when August rolls around? I do, just
a little, because it’s the last full, official
month of summer, although I admit in
Texas there’s still a few more weeks of
summer-like weather. (You know, all of
them before December.) Still, the kids are
back in school — not mine. I have fur
babies. They could go back to obedience
school, I guess.
Most people have wrapped up the
major vacations by the end of August.
Sometimes those expectations of a
rip-roaring summer-fun-filled getaway
experience have dried and shriveled like
magnolias in the Texas heat.
Each year, I envision myself having
loads of fabulous summer fun romping with my longtime boyfriend and my
dogs on a beach somewhere. There I am
— tall, blonde, tanned and fit in a sleek
bikini in some bold color like orange,
with my dogs wearing a corresponding
color of collars and blinged-out bandanas. I stop occasionally to enjoy a frozen
Mai-Tai with an umbrella perched on the
side of the glass. I sip on the beverage
before diving into the water to snorkel,
surf and of course swim in the perfect
cobalt blueness of the sea. Then I come
out of the ocean and, of course, my hair
dries to perfection in the time it takes to
tie a sarong around my waist and slip into
my high-heeled but comfortable flip-flops
to take a stroll around the beach and buy
wonderful, life-enriching baubles from the
friendly, helpful tourist-area vendors.
None of this ever happens with me, of
course, because of several details of my
life. First of all, I’m barely 5-feet tall and
I have brown hair. I almost never drink
alcoholic beverages and I have never
worn an orange bikini. I didn’t wear bikinis when I was a teenager mostly because
I had a father whose head would explode
if I wore off-the-shoulder sundresses.
(“You have no idea the sick, twisted
things that men think of when they see
a girl dressed like that,” he would say. I
was afraid to ask, “What?”)
My usual beach/pool attire is a onepiece with a skirt and matching beach
jacket — that is the swimwear equivalent
of a waterproof business suit. If Judge Q
decides to hear a case in the middle of a
water feature, I’m clad appropriately to
go and cover it.
The second reason why my beach
dreams never came true is because I
can’t swim. Oh, I’ve tried to learn, but
my overwhelming aversion to death and
drowning serves to inhibit my efforts at
swimming and has always put a damper
on following directives from my instructors). Scuba diving, surfing and other
ocean-related activities have never
seemed like a great idea, all because I
don’t know how to swim. I will wade
up to my waist in the ocean. I love the
ocean. I love looking at it. I love the feel
of sand between my toes. I just don’t
think it’s practical for me to get in the
ocean, very far.
But without going on an exotic
beach-related vacation there are great
vacation possibilities. Last October we
took our first trip in years. (It was kind of
a working trip, really, but it was great fun
anyway.) We rediscovered the American
West.
As a child, I traveled through the
West quite a lot, because my father was
in love with it, especially the Grand
Canyon. Our family went there so much
while I was growing up that I’m surprised
we didn’t have a reserved parking space
at the South Rim. We visited the canyon
so much as a family that I found myself
taking it for granted. (Not another majestic view? I want to see some plight.
Why can’t we vacation in New Jersey?)
Rediscovering the Grand Canyon was the
best.
We took a helicopter ride into the
West Rim, one that landed at the bottom
of the canyon, allowing you to get out,
explore a little and get to know your
fellow passengers and maybe your helicopter pilot. It was crazy fun. Our pilot,
whom we’ll refer to as Raoul (because
that’s his name), shared with us cool
stories about air sick-passengers and
working for the government of Mexico’s
equivalent of the DEA. He shared some
hair-raising tales with us that seemed to
make our fellow passengers, three schoolteachers from Maine, a little uneasy, but
we were delighted. “Have the drug lords
ever gone after you?” asked one of the
teachers. “Often,” Raoul replied with a
hint of mischief in his eyes. The teachers
began looking around as if a Tom Clancy
novel could erupt at any moment from
behind the pinion tree. Loved Raoul.
Besides the majestic views, the lack
of deadlines and the quiet, there was
the shopping. I love to shop in odd little
touristy gift shops. Growing up, I traveled quite a lot with my family, but no
matter how much money I brought along
that I’d earned on my own (I had an aunt
who would pay me to simply shut up),
my father wouldn’t let me buy what he
charmingly referred to as, “useless gift
shop crap.” He wanted me to save my
money for more useful stuff like old age.
When we traveled to the Grand Canyon
last fall, the one thing I aspired to do
was spend an entire day buying “useless
gift shop crap.” I actually had squirreled
away a few hundred dollars for such
things. Seriously, I couldn’t wait to buy
ceramic clay pots and scorpion paperweights. I’d talked about it at such length
that we stopped at a Godzilla-sized
gift shop/filling station/restaurant/ gift
shop/crematorium in New Mexico. Our
mission was actually to fuel up our car,
but once that was done we went inside
and I instantly recognized the place
as one I’d visited with my parents as a
“‘tween,” one where I had fallen in love
with some piece of bric-o-brac years ago
but my dad wouldn’t let me buy anything
except a novel by Louis L’Amour. “You
can’t go wrong with a Louis L’Amour
novel,” my dad had said. “But buying
that other stuff would be throwing your
money away.”
Now, I’m an adult and I can buy what
I want with my money, nah, nah, nah. I
riffled through the merchandise, marveling at how little their merchandising
concept had changed over the decades.
There, I gathered earrings (that I fully
expected would turn my earlobes green