Dave Ross remembers vacation season when he was a kid

More than 30 million Americans are on the road this weekend taking family vacations, but unlike when I was growing up – today – there’s all sorts of technology so you never get lost and the kids never get bored.  In the pre-technology days we just kicked the back of the driver’s seat until dad threatened to pull over and spank us.

That’s why the emergency lane was invented – by the way – for flat tires and spankings.

Young people ask me, ‘Dave, what were vacations like when you were a kid?’ I tell them, ‘It was a little like being on the lam.  We’d all pile into the station wagon and Dad would drive until he found a motel with a pool and a vacancy sign.  The only trip planning was to follow the billboards to Frontier Town or the Mystery Caves, where water runs uphill.  The only things on-line were the wet bathing suits hanging over the motel bathtub.’

The problem with family vacations back then was that being with the family got old pretty quick.  But now, thanks to smartphones, kids can spend their vacations texting some predator.

The sad thing is Americans still take only 11 paid vacation days, compared to the Germans and the Brazilians who take 30. I’m always surprised that Brazilians take so much vacation time. If you live in Brazil, aren’t you already on vacation?  The only place you could go on vacation would be someplace worse, right?

Then, at the other end, there’s South Korea where they only take six days on average, and two-thirds of them feel guilty for taking it.  That’s how much they love making our smartphones.

And thank goodness for those smartphones because give a kid a smartphone, and you’ll never have to spank him in the emergency lane.

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