VALLEY: A Rae of sunshine in my vacation

July 02, 2008 03:03 pm

— Pretty soon my wife and I will be heading up to the St. Lawrence. It’s our annual trip back home. It’s time to relax and bask in the glory of our mighty hometown river. A chance to catch up on some reading, some fishing, some golfing and to wage war with bugs the size of Cleveland.
I’ve not missed a column since I started doing them a couple of years ago. A reader-friend, Rae, called the other day and I mentioned to her that I might take a break from writing for a couple of weeks and give the brain a chance to rejuvinate ( Implementation of fresh ideas is long overdue).
When I mentioned this to her, she suggested that I go ahead and put something in the paper regardless of what it was. I sensed that her insinuation was that no one would know the difference if I re-charged the imagination or not. I’m not sure if that was a compliment or an insult.
I went up to our vacation spot for a weekend a couple of weeks ago, by myself, to bring in fresh supplies. I decided to bring a recliner to the camp along with everything that was in the house that we have no use for but refuse to throw out. You know, like a 1986 calendar and wedding matches from complete strangers with all the matches gone. Off to the camp it goes!
Now, you can imagine how heavy a recliner is - and there’s just me. There’s 61 shaky, wooden stairs down a hill that seperates me from getting this thing to its final destination inside the building. After mulling the situation over for a few minutes, I called on an old pal I met in a pyshics book, something called gravity, and he and I got that sucker to the bottom of the hill in seconds flat.
I was fairly lucky that I was able to re-assemble it in only a half a day. It now sits damaged, but proudly, in its new room overlooking the majestic river. I’m sure that when my golden retriever, Henry, sees it, he’s going to love it. And being the animal lover that I am, I promise to throw him no futher than 150 feet into the drink if he even comes close to plopping his hairy butt onto it.
There will be a lot of repairs that need addressing once we arrive and so we invited the kids to come up for some fun and slave labor.
While we are up there, my wife’s family will have their annual family reunion. My wife has eight siblings and it’s always a great event. However, the party is often used to resolve issues from last year’s get-together. Mending hurt feelings that have lingered for twelve months is a priority. The air is cleared of past differences to make room for this year’s new batch of confrontations and arguments.
For a columnist story-teller, such as myself, it’s like being a bear at a honey fest.
I’ve another column to do before the escapades of this vacation hits print. And there’s my own personal “war on bugs” to wage before I sit down and evaluate my two weeks on the river. Whether the stories are good enough and whether I can tell them right, I’ll rely on my friend, Rae’s advice:
“It doesn’t make any difference...” Just tell them!
Thanks, Rae!
And that’s the way it looks from the Valley.
Tom Valley is a Medina resident. His column runs every Thursday. Write to Tvalley@rochester.rr.com.

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