Family Ties

Those of you who follow this blog closely know that I took a week off. Yes, even writers get to take vacation every now and then. In my case, vacation meant piling my son and three grandchildren, 5 year-old boy/girl twins and a nearly 4 year old boy, into a 30-foot RV and hitting the road. I have always like to travel “on the road”. It didn’t matter whether it was by car, motorcycle, or RV, the act of getting out and seeing the world close up excites me. Now, as a grandpa, I want to pass on that joy of encountering the world to another generation.

It’s true that this is not exactly the tent-on-the-top-of-a-station wagon style camping trip from years ago. We weren’t rubbing two sticks together to make a fire and we certainly weren’t foraging for our meals. This is roughing it in a contemporary sense but it still meant changing up all of our lives and learning how to co-exist in a fairly small space. When Jenny joined up for a couple of days that small space was shared by 6 of us.

Kids don’t need an excuse to be active. They just need an opportunity. That was the lesson in the week for me. Where we camped was a children’s paradise with a lake that was nearly 1/4 mile around and VERY shallow for the first 30 yards from shore, a water slide, fishing lake, putt-putt golf, art activities, an inflatable obstacle course, kayaks, and more. A paradise. All we had to do was let them be active. We didn’t have to require them to be active.

They’d get up, eat breakfast and head for the lake. Then came swimming and playing in the water followed by an hour or so on the water slide, then lunch, the golf, then – well – more lake and water slide and fishing and kayaking. You get the idea. Children know, instinctively, that they need to play. Somewhere we lose sight of that. We need to play. Or at least I need to play.

I stopped playing for nearly 25 years. I got pleasure in my life from other, much more adult activities like overeating and smoking and drinking. I didn’t have time to play anymore I told myself. My life was too busy. Too complicated. My work was WAY too important.

Of course, we all know that I was wrong. I needed to play. I needed it more as an adult than my grandchilden need it. I need to move my body. I need to feel strong and alive and free.

And at the end of the day, that’s why I run.

Waddle on, friends.

John “the Penguin” Bingham, Competitor Magazine columnist Author, The Courage to Start, No Need for Speed, Marathoning for Mortals and Running for Mortals.

Have a question for John? E-mail it to thepenguin@johnbingham.com.