I must admit that
my post-Spain summer adventures have paled in comparison. As I sit here reflecting back on my
summer, I can’t even believe I spent a whole month living in another
country. It feels like a lifetime
ago I was meandering the streets of Madrid. What was the next phase of summer? That would involve sand and a body of water, of course.
My family and I took
our annual trip to Surfside Beach, a tradition we have had every year since I
was born. This is where grandma
lives and it feels like a second home.
While it is ever growing, it is nestled about 30 minutes from the
redneck riviera of the better known Myrtle Beach, where the joy of summer is
found in the fresh paint of a henna tattoo and pair of booty shorts with YOLO
across the back.
To me, nothing
says summer like the charm of Oceanside Village—walking toes deep in the water
to the garden city pier, a cone of Painter’s cake batter ice cream melting onto
my hand, watching the people ride by on golf carts from grandma’s front porch,
and last but not least, BINGO.
Now, this is not what the average person my age would consider something
even associated with their life, let alone their summer, but I have been
playing with my grandma every year since I was little. It’s her way of “showing me off” as she
says. Grandma watched my card like a hawk (along with her three), should I
forget to mark that last wild number. To a kid, playing with ink dobbers and eagerly anticipating
the chance of a cash prize given primarily in quarters had a lot more
glitter. In all honesty, it
stopped being fun about six years ago, when I was old enough to drive the golf
cart by myself. Oh, sweet freedom at the age of 15, cruising about a gated
community in my electrically powered hot rod.
There is monotony in
the pattern of one lettered number after another. There is frustration of
getting down to one number, only to hear someone call “Bingo” who has won three
times already. So, why do I go? For those four hours (No, seriously, it
is four hours long) I am making someone special to me happy. Sure, I could think of one hundred
other things I would rather be doing, but all of them pale in comparison to
making my Grandma happy. It is something unique and special that I can do with my
grandma that is all our own. I
have come to appreciate it all the more, considering this is one of the few
things that she really can do anymore. I get to talk with her friends as we all share
stories. I get to look at photos
of their families. I feel my
cheeks get pink when grandma shows them all of mine.
Now, these stories
I have long since memorized. I
know her friends by name, even though as the years pass they begin to
re-introduce themselves more and more. Despite my growing up, BINGO is a constant. Now I am the one taking a casual glance
over to Grandma’s card, should she forget to mark one of those wild
numbers.
