My mom and I flew into Albany and rented a car, although I don't really remember the particulars.We would have driven up to Pulaski, where my grandparents were already at "the Pond," getting ready to sell the house after Grandma King's death. One night, my mom and I went to the local grocery store. We got cherry Twizzlers and one or two Pez dispensers. I think I got a Snoopy and a Peppermint Patty, but I don't know if I got them at the same time. The store also had cereal themed after the Atlantis Disney movie in theaters at that time.
One day, my grandparents, my mom, and I painted the metal of the dock. We had to get in the water to paint it, and so afterwards we went swimming in the pond. Suddenly my mom shrieked because something in the water had bit her.
Susanne called us; she had been in Mexico. She asked me if I still collected chess sets, because she had bought one for me. She had also gotten really sick from eating flan. After she came, I remember she said she would never eat it again, but my great-aunt Mary Lou said it was sooo good. (I don't like it.)
I had brought some Fourth of July magnets, so I asked Grandma if I could put them on the fridge. She said I could.
One day, my mom and grandparents went to the Palmyra Temple. I went to Hill Cumorah instead. I hiked it a couple of times (with a Pez dispenser in my pocket; I think I was wearing my plaid shorts that had a little world patch covering up a hole burned by an ash), including the back way. There had been a youth conference there; when I walked into the visitor's center, the missionaries thought I was part of that group. I explained I was from North Salt Lake. A sister missionary asked if I knew where Holladay was; I said no. I got a one-on-one tour in the visitor's center.
We went to church one Sunday. One of the speakers said something about "four c's: cake, candy, cookies, and ice cream." I went to the one youth Sunday School class, in which the teacher had brought her little daughter. The toddler had a red drink that she tried to give to the class; one girl took it and pretended to drink it, while a boy did a terrible job of pretending. The teacher said that the drink was made out of wheat. Then I went to Priesthood; one of the guys in that class repeated the "four c's" comment. There was a poster with the Boy Scout Law on it; they had added "hungry and aggressive" at the end. My grandparents were frequent enough visitors that the ward knew them; thus, when one girl asked me who I was visiting, I said, "the Ebberts," but I don't think she knew who that was. After church, Grandpa was talking about the family that had fourteen kids. During priesthood, they had talked about fasting and said that you don't need to fast if you are pregnant or nursing; the patriarch of that family said that his wife hadn't fasted for fourteen years. (Maybe it was longer than that.) I had noticed that the teenage boys in that family needed haircuts.
At some point, Susanne joined us. One day, we visited some historical place; I think it was about the Revolutionary War. I was wearing my red USA shirt, and the tour guide wanted me to represent a Redcoat (unless the historic site wasn't about the Revolutionary War). I got a penny whistle and a feather pen and empty inkwell from their gift shop. I think this might have been the same day we went to some Pfaltzgraff (which sounded like "false craft" to me) and Oneida stores. At one store, they sold dishes with slight defects. I saw a Halloween night light that I thought was cool. At the other store, they sold all sorts of silverware and some other odds and ends. I found a little snowglobe of bears celebrating New Year's. Elsewhere in the store, they had little teapots representing months. For November, there was both a turkey and a Pilgrim hat. I liked the hat one better; apparently, it had been replaced with the turkey. I couldn't decide between the snowglobe and the Pilgrim hat teapot, but I ended up getting the teapot.
Then, at some point, the Thompsons came. I think they had flown into New Jersey and rented a van, which had automatic doors, something we were not accustomed to. At one point, I remember Jesse saying he didn't like Baha Men, that being one of Chancey's CDs (during the era of "Who Let the Dogs Out?"). Another day, we were riding in their van for some reason, and my mom put in my mix tape from the year before. It had a lot of smooth jazz from a Peanuts CD that I did not like, so I was trying to express my disdain for it, but my mom and sister told me to stop.
On the Fourth of July, there was a family reunion. I took a dish out of the fridge, trying to find something. My great aunt Mary Lou told me I needed to hold the dish upright. Later, we went to see a river with a waterfall. I was wearing my white t-shirt with a flag design. There was a sign on a tree telling people not to cliff jump, because the writers had a friend who had done so and died. The sign was a bit of a memorial to him, and among other things it had a picture of a pack of cigarettes. I said that if he smoked, he was going to die anyway. We took a little hike down to the bottom of the waterfalls, and on our way, my aunt Sue said she had found a weeping wall, "but it's not as big as the one at Zions." The "weeping wall" she found was just a little tiny spring, hardly anything like Zion's Weeping Rock. Sue's family was going to go see some fireworks. I was a little hesitant about going with them, because of my then-uncle Wayne's habitual tendency toward orneriness. I went anyway, and as we pulled up to the fairgrounds, I saw the sign saying "Oswego County Fair" and I asked if that meant it was the county fair of Oswego or the fair of Oswego County. My cousin Jesse didn't understand what I was talking about. Once the fireworks started, I remember my cousins Jesse and Joey and I having a conversation about how unimpressive these fireworks were. There was a stationary firework on the ground that was an American flag, but that was the only cool one. Jesse said that he had seen flowers (as in the home firework--"ground blooms") do more amazing things. My aunt reproved us for our negativity. As we left, I remember a conversation about carnival workers. When we got back to "the Pond," my mom and the others there said that someone had been setting off illegal Pennsylvanian fireworks that they were able to watch. I remember then that I regretted going, because the fireworks were so unimpressive and I could have stayed at the house and watched the fireworks reflected on the water.
The next day, we were to have leftover chicken for lunch. The adults told us we could have lunch, and they would have more later. I had a very OCD/obese habit at that time where I would eat my first helping, then I would get seconds that were 2/3 the size of the first helping, then I would get thirds that were 1/3 the size of the first. Thus, I had three pieces of chicken, then two, then one. All of us boys ate a lot. Joey was eating with his mouth open, thus making annoying smacking noises, so I told him not to do that. Then I wanted to illustrate how annoying he was by doing the same thing. Then he said, "Marky's a hypocrite." I was so mad that I went and ate outside. When the adults went to eat, they were shocked that the chicken was all gone, and I felt bad for having eaten six pieces. (In my defense, they were small pieces, so only a couple of pieces was not sufficient for a meal, because I don't think they had offered us anything else.)
At one point, Joey found a non-electric lawnmower. He found it fascinating, so he began messing around with it. Sue was proud of him for mowing the lawn, so she took my mom's camcorder to record it, but my mom told her that she needed to tell him he couldn't make random lines in the lawn.
My mom's cousins and their families came up from Tennessee. Chancey was kind of flirtatious with some of the girls; Sue remarked that she noticed he had put on his best shirt, a button-up over a BYU t-shirt (the style of the day being to have a button-up shirt unbuttoned over another shirt). At one point, I took a wet fishing net and sprinkled it above my second cousin Ryan, saying I was getting payback from 1995. He said he didn't remember doing that, but someone else said he could see him doing that. My mom's cousins Rob and Sandy had recently adopted a little boy.
One night, we were all asleep when we heard a girl next door yelling quite loudly, "You're such a liar, I hope you die!" Sue said, "What's going on? Joey?"
We went to Niagara Falls one day. This might have been the morning Chancey came with us in our rental car; he was asked if he was OK with listening to Kenny Rogers and John Denver, and he said he was because his family didn't like listening to country music. I said that I had heard Conway Twitty on commercials and didn't like him. I was offered a granola bar, but I didn't want to eat it because I had brushed my teeth in the last half hour, but I might have eaten it anyway. At Niagara Falls, we went and saw the falls from the back. I remember Joey was singing "Yankee Doodle Dandee." We took a ride on the Maid of the Mist, which was pretty fun.
Another day--maybe that day--we went to the Hill Cumorah for the Palmyra Pageant. We met Grandma and Grandpa there; Grandpa had made his signature chicken and brought it for our dinner. I was kind of embarrassed to be eating it in front of all those strangers. I saw some people with programs, but we didn't have one, so I went up to a booth and said, "Is this where we get the programs?" and she kind of rudely said no. I remember watching all the different actors and identifying them; Joseph Smith was easy. There was a four-year-old girl sitting behind us, who said lots of funny things. When Joseph Smith was sitting on the ground getting the plates out, she said, "Who died?"
When we went to church, Jesse and Chancey were in our Sunday School class, and at the beginning we were supposed to say something about us. I said that Jesse and Chancey were my cousins, and the teacher said she wouldn't have known that. When we went home that day, we looked at the Sunday comics. The Thompsons thought that day's 9 Chickweed Lane was really dumb. I remember Peter saying he would like to have every comics page and every sports page from every newspaper. Other comic strips that I read on that trip referenced Gilligan's Island (before I had ever seen it) and The Beverly Hillbillies, and another had a dad telling his kids that fireworks were illegal, a concept that was foreign to me.
Quin was six, and he became friends with a five-year-old kid visiting the Van Auken family. They did lots of things together, and he even ended up in the Thompson family picture taken in front of the K on the house. Here is our own very unflattering picture, with the visiting kid's head in front.
One time, I remember remarking that the smoke of the fire was like that of Jeannie on I Dream of Jeannie, and Chancey said I was obsessed.
Sue liked to look for bullfrogs to catch. She also would row the rowboat while standing up, so my mom would call her a gondolier. I loved rowing the boat, but I did it sitting down.
There was a Dunkin' Donuts in the area, and I remember Jesse saying that if he were a police officer, he would turn on his siren to get there. Wayne told him that was illegal. I remember being fascinated by all the abandoned houses in the neighborhood. One of them had holiday lights on it; I was trying to tell whether they were red or orange.
I remember our last day there. Everyone had left except for my grandparents. We grabbed all the things we wanted from the house before leaving for the last time. I wanted a little cat statue, and my mom wanted an older Siamese cat statue. I took the little fruit magnets from the fridge. I liked the ones without leaves, but I ended up taking them all. Then we went and met my grandparents at the laundromat, where I was embarrassed to see they had folded my laundry. That night, we stayed with Mary Lou, who made us a really good chicken dinner. I was wearing my Niagara Falls socks, which were white with red heels and toes. Mary Lou said she loved my socks.
Our last day on the trip, we went to a Shaker museum in Albany. But I wasn't too interested; I mostly wanted to see the gift shop, where I got a little hurricane lamp and some candy made with rosemary. We had a late flight out. On one of the flights, my mom put one of our carry-ons up and told another passenger that it was treasures from Grandma's house. I was excited to finally beat level 9-5 on B-version Tetris. During our layover, we got some cookies from a vending machine. On another flight, a man was assigned to sit by us, but there were empty seats on the plane, so he moved. They were showing Spy Kids, but I fell asleep.
And thus ended our New York vacations.
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