Once A Year Ain't Bad

Ever since my girls were very little, I’d take them up for a weekend trip to Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio each summer. We’d stay at the Breakers Hotel, we’d see Snoopy, we’d play on the beach, and we’d ride ourselves silly on rides.

My girls are growing up these days, and are both in High School now -- Heather’s going to be a senior and Hannah will be a sophomore. When I tell a corny joke these days, they roll their eyes instead of giggling – and that’s only if they weren’t texting or listening to an iPod and heard me. And, since they live with their mother, I see them less and less each year. This year they were both so busy that I wasn’t sure they’d want to go at all – in fact, we had to cancel our trip up there last month when one of their schedules unexpectedly changed.

But both of them reassured me that they really wanted to go, so we rescheduled – for this last weekend, in fact. We picked them up Thursday night and, bright and early Friday morning, we loaded up the car and off we went.

For something a little different this time, Janet suggested that we stop off on the way up and check out an antique mall on the main drag in Norwalk, Ohio. Norwalk is one county seat shy of Sandusky on our way up Route 250, and it’s a really nice, well put-together town with a downtown packed with beautifully restored Victorian storefronts. Of course, I’m always game for a stop at an antiques place, but this time I thought a stop would be a good chance for Janet to get to do something she’s interested in, since she doesn’t like roller coasters and – as she patiently does every year – she was going to spend a lot of time in souvenir shops and people watching while the girls and I rode the coasters.

The girls were bored. OK, they were boh - oh- oh- ored. Usually a stop in Norwalk means a round of mini-golf and some Ice Cream at Vargo’s, not a tour of some dusty old antique store! Heather doesn’t mind them as much, but she’d seen it all in ten minutes and was sitting on the curb next to the car in no time. Hannah occupied herself for a while with a vintage pinball machine, but after I pointed at the price tag and suggested that she probably didn’t want to blow her Cedar Point budget buying that if she broke it, she contented herself strolling up and down the street outside, peering in occasionally to see if we were done yet.

Janet found a nice sterling ring that made her very happy. As for me, I did find something I’d been scouting around for . . .

NOTE:  This article is now included in the print version of The Leadhead's Pencil Blog, available anywhere you buy books, or also from The Legendary Lead Company.

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