Page 133 - a-columbia-county-boys-recollections-and-memories-of-columbia-county-florida-(2012)-lenvil-h-dicks

A Columbia County Boy's Recollections and Memories of Columbia County Florida (2012) Lenvil H. Dicks

VACATION TRIPS WITH THE KIDS

Starling at about the time Andy was a year old, at which time Brad would have been about 2 !6, and
Suzanne would have been slightly over 3 years old, Julie and I started taking them on vacation trips. I
realize that it was a good way to spend time with my children, and I had seen too many men get so
involved with their work that they never took the lime to do anything with their children, and I was
determined 1 was not going to let that happen.

Il is hard to remember now what all of the trips we took were, but I am sure that we went on at least ten
nation-wide trips, and almost all of them would involve Hying to a distant city and renting a car once we
got there, and louring that part of the Country for a couple of weeks. I honestly believe that we went to
every National Park in the Country.

Some of the most memorable things I remember taking the kids to see were the giant Redwood trees up
near Phillipsville and Garberville in Northern California, and of course San Francisco and Los Angeles,
and Hollywood, and Yellow Stone Park.

On one trip we were touring one of the movie studios in Hollywood, and we were walking down the
street inside the large area which the studio covered, and looked about 50 feet over to the back steps of a
building, and who should be sitting there but the man who played George Jefferson on TV. We all
recognized him of course, and said hello, at which time he answered back and said “hello how you folks
doing?” That was the highlight of that day’s activities of course for the children.

Another thing that we will never forget doing was our trip to the Grand Canyon. No matter how much
you read about the Grand Canyon, and no matter how many times you see pictures of it on TV or in the
movies, or elsewhere, there is no way that you can experience the feeling of walking up to the edge of
the Grand Canyon and looking over
into it. Somebody had a great idea when they called it Grand, because it is unexplainably grand.

We also went to New York City one time to see a performance of the Nutcracker Suite in the Lincoln
Center. A good friend of mine from Stetson, after graduation, ended up as the manager of Lincoln
Center in New York. He obtained tickets at no cost to me for us to attend a performance of the
Nutcracker Suite as performed by the New York Philharmonic Symphony, and both Julie and I as well
as the children really enjoyed that.

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