As Good as It Gets

The computer ate my homework!

I wrote a heartfelt essay about my father. I went back to the file a few days later and only the title remained. The whole thing was gone. An immoderate amount of cursing later, I have come to terms with reality and accepted that the computer will not bring back my essay just because I yell at it loudly enough. So, let’s try again. This will probably be a much shorter, different piece, but let’s go play.

I think it was 1989 and I was 15 years old. It’d be reasonable to think that something that happened 34 years ago, within living memory, is not history. But to most people born in the 1990s or later, what I’ll be describing might as well be ancient times because it is completely removed from what their reality looks like today.

It was Christmas vacation. My father and I went to Castiglioncello, a beautiful little town by the sea in Tuscany. It was insanely cheap since no one in Italy goes to the seaside in winter. It was a little surreal to see a place normally invaded by thousands of tourists in summer be completely deserted instead. We only saw people at the grocery store. Other than that, it was a ghost town. Every morning, we’d go down by the water and walk for a mile or two along the beach without encountering a soul. Then, we’d find repair from the winter chill by going back to the house where we’d hang out for the rest of the day.

For the two weeks we spent there, of course there was no internet (since it hadn’t been invented yet). We also had no TV. We had no cell phones and didn’t even have a landline. The only points of contact with the outside world were the newspaper we’d read in the morning and a public phone about a mile away. Without any of those things to keep us busy, we’d spend the day chatting about life, reading, writing, eating wonderful meals, and generally having a fantastic time with each other.

Also, in any situation where my father was involved, music was ever present. In particular, during this particular vacation, I remember us listening to the Jefferson Starship’s album Blows Against the Empire. Getting lost in it is a psychedelic journey even without any chemical additives, and we played it on a loop throughout the day.

I have been lucky enough to enjoy many wonderful moments in my life, but I’d be hard pressed to think of a time when I have been happier. If there is such a thing as paradise, I’d like to think that it’s a chance to relieve those days again and again.