Vacationing on the Big Island

Greenland, that’s a new one on me.

I am used to being told ‘off’ – and have had numerous destinations suggested, but never Greenland.
But that’s where I should move, according to one reader.

When I was a few years younger my father would regularly tell me ‘go to your room’, which was not too hard to take: that’s where all my ‘albums’ were. Exile to ‘Yaroom’ usually consisted of a few hours listening to music with those great old ear-muff style headphones on: the kind that not only produced great sound, but blocked out the rest of the world.
I’ve also had many people tell me to ‘get out of their face’, which I always took to mean out of their heads, or out of their sight: though lately I’ve reassessed that, as people tell me I am a close talker.
Maybe I actually was ‘in their face’.
‘Take a hike’ is one of my personal favorites: there is a certain civility to that expression. The speaker is suggesting, I believe, that after some vigorous exercise I may reconsider my position.
The next time I have the chance to take a long hike I promise that I will use that opportunity to fully consider the merits of re-locating to Greenland.

‘Take a Flying Leap’ is another wonderfully description travel recommendation Twenty years or so ago, when hang-gliding was all the rage, there were thousands of people who took that advice seriously. I am not by nature a timid soul, and if the opportunity had presented itself, I might also have taken ‘wing’ – were it not for the lesson provided by my neighbor Dan.
Dan actually took hang-gliding lessons, somewhere in the mountains of Vermont, I think. He got as far as lesson 3 of 5, where they have you literally take ‘a flying leap’. In lesson three you are supposed to jog down a small hill with the glider on your back, hopping up and down like the Wright Brothers early experiments at Kitty Hawk. But Dan got a little more air than he or the instructor expected: in fact his glider caught a good gust of wind and swooped up about 25 feet in the air, then plummeted to earth like a stone. I didn’t actually see it happen, but I heard Dan tell the story as he sat on his couch with his right leg extended and resting on a pillow. His exposed knee, as I remember it, was as big as a basketball.
Despite Dan’s painful experience ‘The Flying Leap’ does at least offer the hope of survival, even of flight, whereas ‘Go Jump In a Lake’, ‘Take a Long Walk off a Short Pier’, ‘Get Lost’ and others of its kind seem to offer no hope at.

My mother tried hard to be constructive when she was frustrated with me. She wasn’t content just to have me leave her sight, but would suggest that during my absence I seek out assistance. ‘Tell It to the Marines’, she’d say, pointing toward the door. At the time though, this advice confused me, as my father was a ‘lifer’ in the Air Force, and for most of my youth we lived on air bases where Marines were hard to find.
I wonder though, if there are any Marines on Greenland?
My father was once stationed on Greenland, and was issued this fantastic coat with a hood that totally encased your head in wolverine fur (or so I imagined). Years later, when he was stationed at the Pentagon, I would often ‘borrow’ that coat when the temperature got below 40 where we lived in Maryland (which was a deep freeze there) and whatever fur that collar was made of, it would drive the local dogs crazy.
You know, now that I think of it, the only way to get to Greenland these days is to take a flying leap, and if you jump in a lake there, chances are that you will have a very hard landing –on ice.
If you take a hike in Greenland you need the usual outdoor gear, plus an expensive sled and a team of dogs. And with all of the effort you have to give to avoiding polar bears and cracks in the ice, there would be very little time left for pondering the great questions of our time.

No, I’ve decided, I am not going to Greenland.
Sorry to disappoint.
But to show my readers I’m not a bad guy, I am going to meet them half way: I am going to go directly to my room and put on my headphones. I’ve got this great new CD of Inuit Love Songs that I can’t wait to listen to.

One man’s exile is another man’s dream vacation.