This week's column

Miniature golf and simpler times

Sometimes I experience small flashes of realization about how complicated I make life.

It seems like we live in a society obsessed with being entertained.

Not only being entertained but going to the most hip and expensive place or having the most up-to-date technology that only stays current for a year and then we just have to get the new version.

I realized it more over the weekend. We took my dad out for his birthday and after dinner we played miniature golf and had a blast. It was so simple, a mother and father playing with their two 30-something-year-old children. Well, mom didn’t play, she just kept score. But she still got in on the fun.

We played at Cave City because my brother lives in nearby Glasgow. Being there made me think of simpler times.

Vacations when I was a kid didn’t have to be a big event each year.

Every so often we would venture to Florida or Gatlinburg but most of the time we went camping or took short trips to places in Kentucky.

Do kids even go camping anymore?

I remember going several summers with my grandparents and cousins. It wasn’t fancy. We just camped out in a camper and rode bikes all over the campground, occasionally getting picked on by my older cousin.

Sometimes there was a hayride or horseback riding but no amusement parks or high-tech entertainment.

Another time, my brother and I went to visit our cousins in Louisville. My greatest memory of that trip was making a fort in their basement with what I think were the screens that were supposed to go in their doors and windows in the summer. Maybe I shouldn’t have confessed that one — now remembering we probably shouldn’t have used those things for a fort — but the memory of something simple stands out.

The older I get, the more I miss those things. We make things too complicated these days trying to outdo others or sometimes even ourselves.

I know when I was younger I always wanted to go to the places that had the most things to do or were the coolest places to go. But now, I long for the days of camping, miniature golf and riding bikes.

Why don’t we appreciate those things when we have them? Now, as I run around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to get things done, my mind drifts back even more to those simpler times.

Even my vacation this summer, although at the beach, was kept simple. I lounged about and ate some fish. Nothing fancy. Restful.

I got a good feeling inside last Saturday night as we all played golf together. The air was cool, the atmosphere was fun and we had a great time. As this summer comes to an end, it will probably stand out as one of my greatest memories.

And, I should add, Dad won the game. He usually does. I’m not sure we’ve ever been able to beat him at that game and probably never will.

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