spring break tbt

while i’m a sucker for the northeast during fall, there is no place as magical as springtime in the south. there is that gleeful window of no gnats, blooming azaleas, and that first whiff of air that makes you remember you’re gonna have a tan again soon.

at the beach where i live, there is another the telltale sign that winter has hung up its hat: high school spring breakers. i’m talking about those girls in the dunes braving the winds and giant groups of tweens who got dropped off by their parents (they’re coming back for ‘em, too, mind you) and are doing their best to split the twelve beers one guy’s older brother scored them for the day. good on ya, folks.

i have had SUCH nostalgia seeing those pale-legged kids around tybee the past couple of weeks. savannah spring break is always around st. pat’s because who the hell wants to deal with all that, but the weather never quiiiiiite lines up for those kids. been there. y’all. it’s sunny, but it ain’t beach weather. still. they come. my dad used to do this thing where the first time carr or julia or i put on shorts for the season he’d let out a big “ooooooooooooh, they’re gonna see that glare all the way over in hilton head!” like the daughters he fathered, my old man agreed everything’s better with a tan.

speaking of my dad, now that i’m of a certain age, and know people who are managing teens and tweens themselves, turns out he was CRAZY. as a scam to distract us from the st. patrick’s day parade roughnecks - said with love - he would annually come up with some plan to get me and my friends out of the ruckus. he loaded us up in his station wagon for exotic destinations like hilton head island, tybee, and i swear i think jekyl or st. simons one time. like, what was he thinking? a car full of early teenage girls? shoot me! we thought we were THE COOLEST, though. savannah did not have a fuddruckers! watch out! venturing out of chatham county meant we could potentially score a bathing suit that was NOT from high tide. oh yeah. we could really stand out among the yacht club pool rats come july. and while adrienne vittadini was luxury and special occasions only, blufton DID have an outlet mall we could cruise if it was overcast.

true story: we sunburned ourselves so badly one year, he went to the piggly wiggly and brought home a sack of potatoes he then sliced up raw and gave to us. he swore it was an old trick for soothing “sun poisonin’” as he referred to it. god, i think of the money i’ve blown on skincare in the past decade and could really throttle the guy for encouraging that habit.

my dad listened to us from the driver’s seat analyze the new guys (turner! gilley!) and come to the conclusion that jackie barrett (see, told y’all she was a bad seed) DEFINITELY stole lindsay’s nautica jacket. he patiently changed out our mix tapes in his dashboard and dug around in the sand when i, inevitably, lost whatever inappropriate for a 13-year old pair of sunglasses i had convinced him to buy me without my mom around on day one. he bought us boiled peanuts and plums for the beach, packed up coolers, and along the way, somehow subtly encouraged us to act like ladies, skip the beer parties til high school, and stay after our sports because basketball summer practices would be here soon enough and coach parker was going to run our asses up and down that gym til we would basically die. to this day, i think one of the greatest thing a dad can do to log some quality time with his child is to come up with a road trip. it is where the parenting magic can really happen!

i, of course, just thought it was normal. he was my dad and he was always a little different from other dads. but now, gosh, it must have been such funny conversations our parents had about those trips away. i wonder how he and tom nash must have chuckled when he picked lindsey up. shaking hands, and their heads, at the drama of their middle school angels. or what a breather it must have given the hollidays to have one kiddo off their radar and in good hands at least for a couple of days - so down to just the three to keep an eye on back at 49th street. he of course instilled in me a deep desire to make him proud. but he did the same with so man of my friends, too.

anyway. those were simpler times for raising kids, me thinks. but i know so many good parents these days doing it just as well, and in the 2019 version of a buick wood paneled station wagon kinda way. so stick with it, folks! your kids will be better for it and their friends might, too.

and yeah. it made me smile to think of him up in heaven dramatically blocking his eyes from my pale ass legs as i strolled the back river today.

spring break 2019 or bust! xoxo