Tales from Exit 22 by Al Batt

Who put the “I” in vacation?

Al Batt

It wasn’t me.

My boyhood didn’t include me going on vacations. For the most part, I was OK with that. The middle of nowhere was the center of my everything.

The only time my lack of vacation experiences stung a bit was when school started up after the state fair, and my class was given the dreaded annual assignment.

Each of us had to take our turn getting up in front of the class, made entirely of critics with the sharpest tongues, and regale them by reading a report filled with tales meant to hold them spellbound. Exotic vacations to places like Iowa were much better than a simple summer vacation from school.

“How I Spent My Summer Vacation by Allen Batt. I did the same things I did last year,” I’d say in a loud voice I hoped would make my short report more impactful.
I’d take a bow and sit down.

It was my lot in life to be born into a wonderful family that didn’t take vacations. Our vacations were always the same — nonexistent. We took no staycations because we didn’t know what a staycation was.

I owned a Magic 8-Ball, an oversized replica of a billiard ball, which I’d ask for advice or predictions before turning the ball over and having the answer revealed.

“Will we go on a real vacation this year?” I inquired before flipping the Magic 8-Ball over and reading, “Don’t count on it.”

The Magic 8-Ball could be cruel.

I wasn’t without my amusements. There were sports, reading, the magic of nature and my mother’s cooking.

And I’d put on clean underwear and attend a hot and/or rainy fair where I’d walk around a tropical rain forest without the forest. There was farm machinery on Machinery Hill that not even George Jetson had dreamed of. I’d visit a horticulture building that made a breaking-and-entering squirrel happy.

The weather was seldom perfect. I didn’t know any local cowboys, but some guys wore cowboy hats, so when it rained, their shoulders wouldn’t get wet. The rain didn’t delay the inevitable or the inedible. Sugar, grease and fat from unreliable sources were washed down with a church stand’s marvelous mashed potatoes. After eating, I needed tidying up because the Loch Ness mustard was so big it got on everything.

Midway barkers called out their spiels and gave no sign they’d be drawing a breath anytime soon.

The chainsaw carving guy never carved a single chainsaw.

An old car show featured autos with headlights that had cataracts.

I saved my money for the fair. I did chores like walking bean rows or baling hay for neighbors. I was in Steve Martin’s corner when it came to money management. Martin said, “I love money. I love everything about it. I bought some pretty good stuff. Got me a $300 pair of socks. Got a fur sink. An electric dog polisher. A gasoline-powered turtleneck sweater. And, of course, I bought some dumb stuff, too.”

Each fair had a Rube Building hosting vendors selling rubes like me things like knives sharp enough to cut pop cans, a spray that made windows look as if there were no windows and devices that, when clenched in the teeth, could turn someone into a ventriloquist or bird caller extraordinaire. You never knew when you might need to cut a pop can in half. Those purveyors of ineffective products were the pioneers of online ads. I bought things that didn’t work. The ineptitude of the stuff I bought made a fur sink a wise investment in comparison. Objects that claimed to do everything proved to have no discernible function. They were as useless as the promises of whichever politician you dislike. I walked the fairgrounds as a penniless, two-footed vault storing memories.

I didn’t exhibit a remarkable degree of willpower. My money was gone in a wink and a blink.

I was given sweet corn to compensate for the storms, mosquitoes and lack of vacations.

I was given fairs because a man can’t live on sweet corn alone.

Fairs supplied me with wonderment, raised eyebrows and a ducked head. Fairs provided me with vacations.

They taught me to take no moment for granted.

Al Batt’s columns appear in the Tribune every Wednesday.