Vacation Morals

Lake George

Vacations, almost by their definitions, never quite feel long enough. This may differ from person to person, but I seem to be packing up the car again just as I have hit my relaxation stride.<!-- Photo Caption With Right Vertical Spacer -->

Perhaps Lake George is no longer for us. Year ago, my girlfriend at the time Kate opted to work as a lifeguard for a week instead of going on vacation with my family for the second time. At the time, her decision baffled and upset me. Who would possibly choose seasonal work over most expenses paid leisure? Clearly this meant she was not terribly in love with me according to my addled twenty year old brain. But she was an experimental girl and couldn't cotton to the idea that one repeatedly vacationed in the same area. Vacations should be explorations, trips to the edge of comfort. This is why she camps in the Dust Bowl or frozen tundra.

It took me significantly longer, but I am beginning to see what she meant. I know Lake George intimately. It is a second home, albeit one I occupy one week out of every fifty-two. The rest of the year is otherwise dedicated to thinking about that one week, savoring the anticipation.

I could say that I have changed. The thrills of Great Escape, the resident theme park, are not as they once were. I do not exhaust and nauseate myself on the various rides as I did as a child and adolescent. I muck about in the lake only from a sense of obligation when once I tried to sail for the center on inflatable rafts. Walking into town on my own lost its edge once I could drive there.

I am not the only one to notice these changes, as Emily made clear when she said while strolling down the one street we acknowledge, as it contains the stores.

"I have had an epiphany."

"And just what is the nature of your epiphany, my curliest of consorts?"

"I think that Lake George is for working class people. This is where they vacation. As evidence, note that we keep seeing souvenirs for electricians and firemen. The stores we like, those offering unique bits of culture, are gone. Everything here is the same, homogenous."

Emily's point was well taken. Where even last year one could find a book store or spirituality shop, one now found replicas of already successful stores, the sort of places that sell t-shirts advertising that the wearer is with stupid or belongs to any number of co-ed naked sports, the only distinguishing feature from swag in any other tourist trap a tiny "Lake George" in the bottom corner. There is an attempt to find the market saturation point for crass memorabilia and, to our disappointment, Lake George has yet to reach it. I do not mind that these stores exist; certainly there is a niche to be filled. However, why couldn't it stay a niche? Must every store be identical? Must the clever and unique toy store be razed to the ground to provide more shelter to refugee bikini inspectors?

Incidentally, Emily would later overhear one of the shopkeepers boasting of their racket to a customer. No matter where money is spent in town, it goes into no more than one of three pockets; nearly everything that can be owned is the property of a few. This oligarchy has no interest in folk art or anything unique and edifying. They merely want as much money as the space will yield in the summer tourist season and kitschy gewgaws are most marketable. They cut their own throats in time, driving away tourists who come time and again for the experience Lake George has always afforded them, but the businesses can only see until September. The time will come that tourists will be less interested in the town as it becomes one tourist Wal-Mart. The uniqueness that made Lake George special is not immediately profitable and the behavior of the entrepreneurs in the town brings unbidden to mind the fable of the golden goose and its slaughter.

Read the rest: Vacation Morals (2005.08.20)

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