THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 15, 1995 TAG: 9510110091
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K7 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: REAL MOMENTS
SOURCE: BY SAM MARTINETTE, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: Medium: 81 lines
``DON'T WORRY, we'll be fine,'' I assured Julie, tossing her gear into the van. My wife was going to ride the rapids for a weekend with co-workers. ``I can handle the kids. No problem,'' I boasted.
She should worry, I mused as the van pulled away for the seven-hour drive to West Virginia, where the group would rendezvous with other adventurers to ride the Gaully River for two days.
What could go wrong over the weekend? Hadn't I kept the three kids while their mom was in New Orleans for a week attending a convention? Modern dads know the ropes. ``Don't worry, we're fine,'' I assured her when she phoned to tell me she had arrived safely.
Two hours later I was found barefoot in the back yard in my pajamas, locked out of the house. Oh no, I thought, I've grown up to be Dick Van Dyke!
The kids were in bed and I had gone out to bring in the cat's food, so the neighborhood raccoons could fight somewhere else during the night. The sliding glass door, which never locks automatically when it slides shut, was unaccountably locked. I had no keys, and less than five minutes to rouse Nicholas, the 8-year-old, before he dropped into a deep sleep. His little brother Jake would be awake for hours, but was technologically challenged when it came to the variety of locks he would face to let me in.
My in-laws had a key, but that was no help because the safety latch on the glass door was locked, barring entry to the front door itself. The answering machine was on, so even as I swallowed my pride and called from a neighbor's, I would hear my own ironic voice, telling me that I was not presently able to pick up the phone.
The thing to do was to lay on the bell, which I did at the back door with no results. Surely the racket was keeping Nick from dozing off, but was so alarming that he was reluctant to wander around a house where his father was already missing.
My toes were getting cold as I opened the backyard gate and padded around to the front. In blue-and-white-striped pajamas, I looked like a fugitive from a Depression-era chain gang, but that was the least of my worries as I worked the front doorbell, hoping Nick would come down and peek through a window. I called, but since it was cold most windows were closed.
This wouldn't have happened to my father, I moaned, thinking back to the firesides of the '50s. Few of my mother's generation would have left kith and kin to ride the rapids. But this being the '90s, separate vacations were becoming a regular thing. How many working stiffs can afford a week away without kids? The alternative was to take family vacations together and have grown-up trips separately.
It would be sad, I reflected - no doubt feeling sorry for myself at the prospect of sleeping with raccoons in my own yard on a cold fall night - when Julie and I grew older and sat by our fireside reminiscing about the old days.
``Remember that great trip to New Orleans that you and your friends took,'' I might say, ``or the time you and the girls rode the rapids. . . went skydiving. . . bungee jumping. . . on a cattle drive. . . went to Paris?'' The possibilities were endless.
``How about the time you and the boys went to New York, or that weekend in Baltimore you told me about,'' she might say. ``That sounded like a great trip. I'm sorry my friends and I never made that trip.''
And there we would sit, sipping sherry, thinking back to all of those good times we didn't have together.
Snap out of it! I hissed to myself, wiggling my toes to keep warm while the bell continued to ring with no effect. I had called Nick's name for some time now, but I realized that I was going to have to shout to get results. So what if all the neighbors knew what a fool I was? That was definitely better than sleeping in the bushes.
So I began to shout, waiting for lights to pop on all over the neighborhood, when suddenly I heard Nick's voice, calling me from the only open window upstairs.
``Dad?'' he called softly, in the sweetest tones I've ever heard. ``Dad? Is that you?''
I was rescued, and already thinking about how much money I had saved by having my adventure right here at home. MEMO: If you have a Real Moments you would like to share, send it to The
Virginian-Pilot, c/o Real Life, 150 W. Brambleton Avenue, Norfolk, Va.
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