Several times a year my grandparents would pack up their RV (including their toy poodle with rust colored fur and chronic bad breath) and travel across the country. We’d learn of their whereabouts from postcards that would arrive periodically in our mailbox. Their destinations were an odd assortment of common tourist attractions and strange places off the beaten path: the Ozarks, Grand Canyon, Virginia Beach (we received a postcard declaring that Virginia is for lovers with my grandmother’s frilly handwriting, “That’s Us!” inside the heart).
Their travels were documented in a photo album that was displayed on the coffee table in their living room. My mother and I would languidly flip through the album when we visited. The photographs were fairly repetitive: my grandmother standing in front of some touristy sign or statute, clutching her purse and smiling as my grandfather snapped her picture. Or the two of them together, their smiles frozen as they waited for a kind stranger to figure out how to work their camera and take the picture.
My mother and I swallowed yawns as we leafed through the pages of this album. My grandparents seemed less interested in taking snapshots of their surroundings and more interested in pictures of themselves.
Especially when they visited the Poconos.
For those of you unfamiliar with the Poconos, it is an area in northeastern Pennsylvania that is known for its mountains and romantic getaways. During the 1970s – 1990s, resorts popped up like gophers catering to couples who were just dying to relax in heart shaped jacuzzis, circular beds and gigantic, seven foot champagne bubble baths. Competition between resorts was fierce. They battled to outdo one another for the most “alluring” room names: Paradise Stream, Cove Haven, Fantasy and Garden of Eden are just a few of the names given to some of these horrendously gaudy rooms.
While we never received a postcard from the Poconos, evidently my grandparents sojourned in one of these atrocious hotels, because they documented it in the photo album they left on the coffee table in their living room.
Nestled between the pictures of my grandmother wearing her floppy sunhat and standing outside of the Alamo, was a photograph of her wearing a blue negligee and kneeling on a white furry rug. Next to this photograph was my grandfather, donned in blue Speedo underwear, sprawled on the same furry rug and smiling mischievously at the camera.
Thankfully, the pictures stopped there. (And thankfully, they didn’t ask some stranger to pop into their hotel room – which was probably named The Love Nest – to take pictures of them together on the furry rug.)
My mother and I saw these Pocono pictures at the same time. My mother recoiled, as though she had seen something strange and hideous.
“Good heavens!” she said.
I let out a whooping holler of laughter as my mother snapped the photo album shut.
“I think we’ve seen everything we need to see.”
But there are certain things you can’t … un-see. My grandparents racy Pocono photographs are forever burned in my brain. Why they would choose to place those salacious photographs in the album is anyone’s guess. Perhaps they viewed them no differently than the other innocuous shots: saying cheese in front of the Liberty Bell, posing next to a palm tree in South Carolina, scantily clad and smiling seductively from a shag rug in a Pocono hotel room.
Or perhaps they snickered conspiratorially as they slipped the risque photographs in the plastic sleeves.
“Just wait until the kids and grandkids see these! And they think we’re just visiting places like Strubridge Village.”
Brilliant !
Awww, thank you so much! I really appreciate that.
🙂
Oh my God!!!!!!!!! I think I blocked those pictures from my memory bank!!! Thanks for bringing them up to the surface. 😦 Yes, I think that is exactly what my Mother was doing. She had the last laugh and reminded us all that she was very happy she was who she was.
Hahaha! She absolutely had the last laugh! (And sorry to bring back those memories!)
So, you just had to make fun of those salacious (albeit cliche) resorts in the Poconos! My wife and I stayed at one of those places one weekend. (It had the heart-shaped tub and everything.) But you know what? I never developed that roll of film. And I honestly don’t know where it might be.
And the people at Kodak thank you.
Yes they do. More than you could ever know.
sure
🙂
You are hysterical, Miss Meg! Nannie and Grandpa certainly lived in their own world, didn’t they? It certainly worked for them! Thanks for bringing those images back into my noggin…to once again try to shake out of my left ear. Ha, ha, ha! They are smiling down on all of us…lying on that furry rug, wearing who knows what! Love you! Aunt Char xoxoxo
“Lived in their own world” is the perfect description. Yes they did! (And sorry about conjuring up those images. They were pretty rough!)
Oh, my……sounds racy! And I love that they gave you such a jolt!
They were VERY racy! There are just certain things you DON’T want to know about your grandparents. That was one of them.
I loved Cove Haven — it was a very nice place– I especially liked the in-room swimming pool. 🙂
Hahahaha! Please tell me you’re kidding. The only way I’d step a pinkie toe in one of those in-room swimming pools was if the water was Lysol Disinfectant.
Oh, and that huge champagne glass in the lobby… always enjoyed watching people wash around in that. 😀
Ewwwww!
well, if it’s any consolation, I think they drained the fluids out of that that thing every month or so to clean it.
Every MONTH or so? Ewwwwww again.
Awww, not so bad — sometimes, they filled it with champagne, sometimes with club soda. There’s nothing like a sip of eau-de-stranger to get the vacation started off right. 😀
Hilarious!! My grandparents were avid travelers too. Upon their passing, my mother inherited boxes and boxes of photo albums containing endless photos of scantily clad bathing suit beauties. Apparently my grandfather had a little problem distinguishing between my grandmother and the 20 somethings walking by his blanket, playing beach volleyball or bending over in the surf. Not sure whether to laugh this off as his appreciation of artistic beauty or throw up a little in my mouth 🙂
This. Is. Hysterical! I LOVE it!!! Thank you for sharing! (and reading, of course.)
I absolutely love when you use phrases like, “Or perhaps they snickered conspiratorially.” I think I could pick your endlessly entertaining style of writing out of a hundred blogs. Hey! That might be fun, wanna try?
On another note – – We are a family who goes on vacation and also comes back with 95% of the photos containing just our family members switching around in varied positions of a line-up. “Take another with Dustin in the middle now. And next, let’s do one from the waist up only.” Our theory is if we want to remember the scenery of where we’ve been, we’ll buy professional postcards!
And on another note (lots of notes here) I know of no other blog that has a comment section that is as fun to read as yours. Plus, I just never know who I’m going to run into over here – – MuscleHeaded Blog!
Read you soon! (yes??)
Steph
You crack me up. I love your description of your various family pictures lined up in a row. Too funny!
Before digital cameras, when we had to send rolls of film away (remember that? And the little film kiosks in parking lots???), we would get pictures back that my mom had taken, and there would be, like, 10 of the same pose. She would just repeatedly snap away, hoping one would be good enough to keep.
This only grew worse when grandchildren entered the picture! (No pun intended.) Thank goodness digital cameras entered the scene shortly thereafter.
And you’re so right! My readers leave awesome comments!