How They Spent Their Summer & How I Spent Mine

As a person, I like President Barry. I don't think I can make a qualified assessment as to whether or not I like him as a President so far, since he's only been in office for nine months. Had he given birth at the end of these nine months, well then, that would be sayin' something! But he hasn't, so I'm holding off judgment on that aspect of the guy. But as a guy, he seems like a pleasant man. I think that's why he can say a lot of stuff that, if you stop to think about it (and many people are too busy either fuming or swooning that they don't) sounds really silly. I'll point to one example from President Barry's stop by David Letterman's The Late Show the other night.

President Barry was talking about what his kids did over the summer vacation. He said something to the effect of, "We decided there weren't going to be any fancy camps during the summer. They basically just goofed off during the summer . . . " And that seemed to go over perfectly fine. Dave didn't question him about it. I haven't seen it brought up anywhere else. Apparently, I have to do everything around here. ::: sigh ::: So be it. Here we go....Are you kidding me??

Fancy camps? Is that always an option? Is that how he thinks he's connecting to the commoners? By mentioning that his daughters won't be going to any fancy summer camps? The fanciest my summer camps got when I was a kid was a tent in the back yard. Sure, my Dad would come out in the morning and fire up the barbeque and cook us pancakes on a griddle, but that was about as fancy as our camp got. Besides, did anyone really expect that his daughters would be going to camp at all? Somehow, summer camp seems a little bit, I don't know, a little bit beneath the President, you know what I mean? Again, I'm not knocking summer camps, but you see what I'm saying, right? Good.

So he's trying to get us to buy that his daughters just "goofed off during the summer"? Again, I'll make a comparison to myself which seems more than appropriate since I'm not black, I don't have a sister and my father was never President. When I "goofed off during the summer" it was what it sounded like. Goofing off. Watch TV. Sleep in. Read a bunch of books. Go swimming. Play at friend's houses. Lots of sleepovers and staying up late. Dozens if not hundreds of Popsicles were consumed between June and September at my house. That's goofing off. So now let's look at how Sasha and Malia spent their summer "goofing off".

Here they are with their parents "goofing off" as they deplane Air Force One in Massachusetts on their way to Martha's Vineyard. Ah, the days of getting off of my parents chartered private plane that the government always supplied us as we arrived for our private vacation on a secluded island. Oh, wait. That never happened to me.

Here they are doing their best Carmen Sandiego impersonations as they tour the Kremlin in Russia. They're touring the Kremlin. The best I could have hoped for over one of my childhood summers would have been a tour in my uncle's Gremlin.

Here they are at Martha's Vineyard. I didn't have vineyards to vacation in when I was growing up. There were apricot and prune orchards around here. My brother and I did have a babysitter named Martha when we were younger. So I guess the best I could have done would have been Martha's Prune Orchard. It sounds delightful, but it's just not the same, you know?

Here they are checking out the Eiffel Tower in Paris. I think my family drove past the Sears Tower once on one of those God-awful cross country car trips. You know the ones. The ones where they put you in the car when you're still asleep at 4 in the morning and then by the time you wake up, you're three or four hours from home. You have no idea how to get back home if you should manage to escape! You're stuck ! (I'm convinced that is the real reason behind any family who ever leaves for family vacation at 4am. There's no other rational explanation for it other than to disorient the children.)

Here they are having fish and chips at the Audley Pub in London. Me? Well, I've read books by Jack London on my summer vacations. I've also had fish and chips, but only the kind batter dipped and cooked up by my aunt or my grandmother. No going to London for me!

In Rome, they went to the Colosseum...

and in France they went to the Pantheon

Maybe once or twice a summer, my brother and I would get to see an A's game at the Oakland Coliseum, but that's about as close as we came to the Obama girls going to the Colosseum.


They went to Ghana.

The closest my summer vacation's would ever come to even sliding in the word "Ghana" would be if I asked, "Where's Dad? Did he leave? Is he Ghana-ready?" (The answer to which was almost always, "No, he's still waiting, so git!")

They saw concerts by Beyonce and the Jonas Brothers.

I had a boombox.

So don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that I don't think that the summer vacation that the Obama girls had was out of line or anything. I think it's great. I'm sure they learned a lot and had a blast in the meantime. ("Boy, Dad. I sure am glad you got to be President. This is great!") All I'm saying is you can hardly call it "goofing around", can you, President Barry? I didn't think so.

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