Ah, vacation photography—where would we be without it? How else could we prove (or in my fuzzy-brained case, even remember) that we had built a sand castle by the Gulf, ridden the train to Tombstone Territory, explored the battlefields at Vicksburg, or toured Fairyland Caverns on Lookout Mountain? (Actually, our vacation shots suggest that I slept through that one, with Daddy carrying me.:) I found this picture when I was cleaning out a desk the other day. It was taken on Panama City Beach with a Kodak Instamatic (the kind with the flashcube on top), around 1969. That's me on the left, with my cousin Kathy, who was my beach buddy on those trips. Note that our mothers gave us the exact same haircut even though we had radically different hair. You would think the Ladies Home Journal would have advised them against that. Kathy was always trying to straighten hers, and I was always trying to coax a curl—even a hint of a wave—into mine. No such luck. It was straight as a board then, and it's straight as a board now. I'm pretty sure Mama ordered my shorts ensemble from Sears because other photos from this same trip reveal that I had it in more than one color, and most of my fashion multiples back then came from Sears. I don't remember where we were staying, but I know it had a kitchenette. We always had a kitchenette. My mother believed in stretching her vacation dollar. Kathy and I always envied the kids we met from up north because they were always in Panama City for at least two weeks, whereas we only got a few days. (Granted, it took them 14 hours to get there, but still, we were jealous.) The departure for home was always an adventure because my parents were notorious for deciding, at the exact same moment, that vacation was over and it was time to go—right then. Once, on the last night before we were set to leave, we had all had our supper and our showers and were ready for bed when Mama and Daddy looked at each other and said, "Let's go." Our car wasn't air-conditioned—come to think of it, neither was our house—so I guess they figured it was easier to travel at night with two sleeping kids than sweat it out with us the next day. As for me, I much preferred to return by day. That way, the folks back home would be awake to greet us—and to admire the way my pink airbrushed T-shirt set off my new suntan. Or sunburn.
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