Triple F Days

“Triple F Days” are what my family calls Forced Family Fun days for short, at least that is what the F’s stand for in my mind. I am sure that my children would tell you that those F’s stand for some other choice words. “Triple F Days” are the days that I insist we all go out adventuring.

On any given Saturday in the recent past, one might have seen Twain and me and all four of our kids sallying forth to the ferry terminal to catch the 7:15 boat off the island to “go to nature,” our family lingo for a hike. This could mean a simple walk in the woods or an extended expedition. Passersby have literally exclaimed “What a happy family!” as we have paraded along. What they haven’t been privy to is the 6:30-wake-up, the groans and utterances of agony about the injustice of it all, nor the infighting about who has to carry what and the unfairness of having to wear a jacket even if it “isn’t cold.” They haven’t heard the exasperated sighs and shrill complaints about waking up on a Saturday and being forced to eat breakfast before the birds and all the comparisons made of what other normal teenagers get to do with their Saturdays.

I have dragged everybody on bike rides, hiking trips, camping excursions, and road trips since the day they were born, whether they wanted to or not. They have spent days stuffed into cramped vans and sleeping in tiny wet tents in the name of togetherness and the beauty of the outdoors. We don’t have a “Leave it to Beaver Family” and often all that coziness can become, shall we say, stifling? Yet, I continue to champion these days, optimistic that the next one will always be even better than the last.

One March, not long ago, I was seized by the longing for a Triple F adventure that was a bit more than a day trip. I decided what we all needed was a road trip to Apalachicola, in Florida’s panhandle. A little spring-break escape from Maine, which, in March, is gray and bitter and without a hint of spring in the air. I quickly calculated a 22-hour road trip. We thought we could make it in one day if we took turns driving. This sounded a tad awful, but it would surely be worth it. When we got to Tallahassee, some 23 hours from home, we realized we still had five hours to go. We were all sick with fatigue as we arrived at our destination at 3 a.m., rather than the predicted 9 p.m. The campsite was locked with a sturdy bar across the drive. I am ashamed to say, I drove around it, crushing all manner of flora and fauna. I am a fallible environmentalist.

We went to set up our tent and realized that we forgot some of the poles. The zipper broke. There were midges and sand fleas. We tried to hang it with some branches and use duct tape to seal the tent’s entrance. It didn’t work. Our sleeping pads would not inflate. The next night Twain got food poisoning. Duct taped tent doors and sick stomachs are not a good combination.

My friend and Barbara Schlictman brought her family to join us for a few days of this lovely trip midway through the week. Our children get along better with each other if you dilute the bunch and her family was a welcome distraction. When they arrived, however, they took one look at our hobo tent and promptly rented a small bed and breakfast in the local town. They decided it might be better to just join us in our squalor during day light hours.

One afternoon the boys took a cheap inflatable raft out on the ocean. As they jumped in and out of the boat and clumsily splashed at the water with the plastic oars, the wind picked up and blew the raft down the beach a little way. Before long they found themselves paddling about in front of a group of surf fisherman. One fisherman began gesturing emphatically to move away from the area. The children jumped off the raft and began to try to push and pull the raft back up the beach against the wind. They were making little to no progress. The man continued to call and wave at them. My friend Barb approached the man to tell him nicely that the boys were trying, thinking this man was being a little uptight about the kids invading his fishing grounds.

He was not uptight. The man told Barb that he had been calling to the boys because there were 5 hammerhead sharks circling the raft that had been drawn in because of the smell of bait from the fishing. He could see them swimming around the juicy little boys who were happily splashing in and out of the boat. Without a word, Barb walked into the ocean, through the school of sharks, and calmly directed the boys to get back in the raft. She pulled them safely to shore before ever uttering anything that would cause alarm until they were safe on the beach.

After driving another 27 hours home to Maine we were all terribly sick of each other. The bickering and the smells emanating from the children were unbearable and by the time we got out of the car, I had a knot in my rump as big as a gourd. It took weeks to get out, literally.

However, the truth is that even that knot was worth it. We spent our time on the Florida Coast on a wild and beautiful beach, half-naked and lounging in the sun. We swam in the warm silky water, ate delicious seafood, and stayed up late to watch the stars and sit around our fire under tall palms. We caught lizards and listened to wild pigs barrel through the undergrowth late at night. We met friends and made beach mazes and found that my friend has heroic qualities. And we ended up laughing about the nightmare qualities of the trip; in fact, we still laugh about it. In the end, I got exactly what I had wanted, togetherness, adventure and the outdoors.

It wasn’t until my son Jonah turned 18 and announced he was no longer going to be bullied into joining us on our family outings that anybody even realized they had an option. His older brother, Finn, was 20 at the time and it had never occurred to him that he could opt out. Raven, his younger sister, was 16 and amazed at Jonah’s audacity, but soon came to find that he had paved the way for her to use the word “no.” This has saddened me to no end, but all teenagers need to exert their independence at some point.

The good news is that Oakley has not yet grasped that he could put his foot down and refuse to go on our trip. Don’t tell him. I am seizing the day and taking him before he figures it out. He is on the cusp. I am sure that it will not go smoothly, but I am sure that it will be worth it just the same.

-Dedicated to Barb Schlichtman and her “Triple F Days”