End of a season; end of an era
Monday, September 1, 2008 at 08:12PM 
My friend Cary and I have been bringing our families and friends "up nort'" to a small resort nearly every Labor Day weekend since 1993. Over the years, it become tradition. (See 2006 and 2007 reports.)
But next year the tradition ends. Bill and Nancy, the owners of Cry of the Loon, are retiring and will rent no more. Knowing this, I spent an entire weekend with a lump in my throat. And I am not a particularly sentimental person. Or maybe I am since I've been spending lots of time thinking about tradition and its importance to kids.
When I was a little boy growing up on the prairie, my family's traditions centered around the big holidays - primarily Thanksgiving and Christmas, every year going to the same set of grandparents, eating the same sorts of food, and pounding on the same set of cousins. My grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins all lived within driving distance and the terms "blended" or "nontraditional" family were not in our vocabulary or experience.
Cary's and my kids did not have the "traditional" holiday experience. More than two sets of grandparents often living at great distances ruled out much consistency in how they spent Thanksgiving and Christmas. But for our kids, the Labor Day pilgrimage each year to Cry of the Loon became the tradition. Each year we religiously:
- Arrived on the Friday night and left on Monday morning.
- Took a bike ride around Lake Itasca.
- Climbed the park's fire tower (making it to the top was a rite of passage).
- Had malts served in the big steel cans at the Douglas Lodge.
- Watched the Tom Hanks movie Big.
- Grilled burgers and dogs.
- Braved the cool lake waters for a "last summer swim," pretty much regardless of the weather.
I have always been surprised at the vehemence with which our kids held the weekend's events sacrosanct. Staying in a different cabin or even sitting at a different table in a favorite restaurant was met with protest. New food items were held in disdain. Order and sameness and regularity were the rule and violation from it was a sin.
As we were packing up to leave this morning, 7-year-old grandson Paul asked, "But Grandpa, aren't we going to watch Giant before we go?" I could not figure out what he was taking about. I told him that the movie Giant was for adults and he wouldn't like it and if he was thinking of Iron Giant, the cartoon, the lodge didn't have it. Finally in frustration, Paul explained the plot: "You know, Grandpa, it's where the boy wakes up grown up and dances on the piano in the toy store." Ah, it was Big, not Giant, he wanted. A new generation demanding tradition as well.
I also believe tradition is as (or maybe more) important to us older people. I realized on my drive back that I always take the back roads, the Blue Highways, from the lodge to home. It started because I wanted to avoid the holiday traffic mess on the popular roads, but yesterday I had to admit that I just plain get pleasure from driving in the country past the small lakes and old barns and little towns with little intakes of breath at how beautiful our state can be. Back roads add an hour, perhaps, to the 250 mile trip. But it is an hour well-spent.
Rob Rubis is struggling with the conflict between the traditional and the new in his school and library program at ISB, as I am sure many of us are. Are we too quick to dismiss the traditions in our schools and in our practice? Do both our students and our staff genuinely need some continuity, some sameness, even if it seems dated, in their speedy, changing lives?
Do we offer enough traditions for our kids? And how do we build these routines and beloved practices? Something I will be thinking about as our students roll back in tomorrow.
Last swim. Paul at Cry of the Loon, Labor Day 2008.
Reader Comments (7)
Our last twelve 'March Breaks' in Ontario have been spent at Kiawah Island, South Carolina. Every year the family says we'll try somewhere else the next year, but we keep going back. Too many cherished memories and activities.
You make a good point about familiarity and traditions, within families and schools.
Thanks, Paul. I suspected that this might resonate with you more than most.
My realization was that the traditions are probably as important to me as they are to my kids and grandkids!
All the best,
Doug
Your piece really struck a chord with me, and other readers, I'm sure.
My Mum has been going to Golden Lake in Eastern Ontario since her own childhood. Initially to a cabin, then camping, and now to a lodge with sleeping cabins, sometimes for the whole summer, but always right up to Labour Day.
Due to mobility issues, she no longer goes to swim, but she wouldn't dream of missing her time at the lake. Now my children are a part of her tradition, and there are unvarying rituals involving particular hamburger stands, fossil hunts, and other summer delights. Even the bug bites are part of it. But my children and I vary our campsites, and visit Grandma at her lodge.
I urge you to find a way to keep the traditions, even if you have to move along the lakeshore. These rituals are far more important than Christmas or New Year's.
In the same vein synthetic or home-made rituals and traditions, whether in the classroom or in the home, take on a power of their own, especially with younger kids. It can be a simple as a tidy-up song in kindergarten, or a story-reading chair, or a high-five at the end of the day. Kids like and need continuity and familiarity in some things -- it gives them the strength and freedom to try the new without fear.
Doug,
Now you went and built a lump in MY throat. Not because you mentioned me in your post, although that raises another issue. I've been wondering if my last couple of posts come across as self-pitying instead of self-reflective, and I've really been planning to work on a more...constructive(?) way of voicing my misgivings and outlining my coping strategies. Now you go and shine a spotlight on my inadequacies;( )) Gotta work on that!
But no, your post hits me right where I live. Increasingly in the last two years (coinciding, it seems, with my New Dad status) I've become preoccupied with misgivings about the future of not just education, but 21st-century society in general. I'm invested enough in this that I've written a novel about it (I'll get to this in an upcoming post). Closer to where I live - and work - have been those growing questions about finding that elusive balance in an increasingly technology-obsessed work environment. And finally, of course, as a 50-something (first-time) father, I've only now begun to truly wrestle with those very personal issues of what, in the end, is it really important for me to achieve in whatever time I've got left.
It was on this last level that your posting really hit home. In our headlong rush to embrace the new global networking phenomena, we risk losing the intimacy of family and tribal customs that have been the glue of society from the very beginnings of human culture. As we find the "free" hours of each day whittled away by wonderful, but time-consuming online interactivity, we have to give up something - and too often that is quality time where it really counts. And as we devote ever more time to exploring the fascinating but arcane worlds of web2.0 , social networking and virtual reality environments, we risk letting go of hands-on traditions faster than we can build new ones that will have the same staying power as those weekends at the lake, those shared family traditions, those daily family routines.
So:
I'm going back to my travel agent to say that that trip home to Canada at Christmas really IS important, even if I can't get there on an award flight.
I'm rethinking my decision following OUR summer at the lake to let go of my dream of building a "green" home there.
And I can't wait to introduce MY son to Big.
The other stuff is, in the end, not my life. It's my work, and it will, like my blog, continue to be "Edging Ahead" while I focus on what's really important.
Thanks!
Rob
Doug-
You asked, "Do both our students and our staff genuinely need some continuity, some sameness, even if it seems dated, in their speedy, changing lives? Do we offer enough traditions for our kids?" I am reminded of a teacher in my school who established a routine each time her 8th-grade students left the computer lab. She required of these much-too-cool 14-year-olds that they leave their keyboards parallel to the edge of the table and their mouse devices "in their happy places." Nothing could be left "askew," she said. The students rolled their eyes but good-naturedly placed all movable items in their happy places. And they never forgot the meaning of "askew."
Meaningless tradition or comfortable predictability? I'd vote for the latter.
-Mary
@ Hi Sandy,
Your points about ritual in the classroom are so important. We all, children and adults alike, need some stability from which to launch.
Thanks so much for leaving your comment,
Doug
@ Thanks, Mary. Great example of a tradition that brings comfort to kids lives.
"Happy places"? I love it!
Doug
Hi Rob,
I sensed absolutely no self-pity in your posts, only honest questioning. I only point others to blog entries of value. And I feel yours have value.
My world view has shifted as a grandfather, as yours has as a dad. Perhaps we are both just a bit more sensitive about the world we are leaving to those we care about.
And I can't say I've found a good balance between the traditions and rituals of the past and the newness, immediacy and impersonality of the virtual world either. Like you, I find it fascinating, but am unsure of its value. There is an anonymous, dehumanizing quality to this "social web." Maybe neither better or worse, Just very different.
I truly hope you make it home for Christmas. I don't think I've ever regretted time I've made for family. Only regretted the times I didn't.
All the best and thanks again for your great posts,
Doug