Vacations, 1943

Summer's onset trapped many a U.S. vacationist flat on his own front porch. The plain citizen was marooned at home, with a well-stuffed wallet. He had plenty of easy-come money to be easygoing with, and not a thrilling thing to spend it on.

This was probably the first year he could really afford to go to Banff in the Canadian Rockies, or at least to take that big corner room at his favorite Atlantic City hotel. But roaming was out for him. The gas and rubber rules made a mockery of his shiny car, whitewall tires agleam, the top battened down. The hard breathing railroads warned him off; they had all they could handle without the likes of him. If his muscles were still good enough for a bicycling trip, that meant he would probably be drafted before the summer was over.

But Don't Go Near the Water. Thus the U.S. vacationer, with two weeks to spend and nowhere to go, could only curse Hitler and turn a sour eye on his home-town swimming pool, zoo, golf course, movies, ball park, race track. Or he could try to take philosophic comfort from the worldlywise, 400-year-old advice of Cervantes: "Journey over all the universe in a map, without the expense and fatigue of traveling, without suffering the inconveniences of heat, cold, hunger and thirst."

Die-hards who intended to go away for a vacation, whether or no, found the outlook bleak:

>Washington had not said bluntly, "Do not travel"; but it had said "Do not travel far; travel, if you must, only on slack days."

The Federal view of vacations: ODT approves a one-trip vacation (if not too far away) as "necessary travel." Casual trekking-off over weekends is frowned on. Trains (preferably coaches), busses and common carriers are all right for holidaying--if space can be found. The use of private automobiles in the East is strictly illegal--even to visit an Army camp. But Washington said that travel would not be rationed this year.

>Burbled the Chicago Chamber of Commerce, with a placatory eye on ODT: "If you can't go fishing, go to the Shedd Aquarium and look at the fish. . . . Interested in faraway places? Visit the new foreign exhibits at the Field Museum."

> New Englanders who once boasted of never having visited "touristy" Revolutionary landmarks are now setting out from Boston's Park Square, in horse-drawn busses, to visit Old North Church and Bunker Hill; now go by bus and train to see the Minute Man statue on Lexington's Green and Concord's "rude bridge that arched the flood."

> Summer camps in New York, the Midwest and the South have boom-time reservations. Reasons: 1) bigger incomes, 2) working women want their children watched when schools close, 3) mothers want to visit Army camps.

> In Atlanta, miniature golf made a miniature reappearance (two new courses).

Socialites formed a weekend walking club.

> In Manhattan, bicycle renters were never busier, round-the-island pleasure boats and Hudson River excursion cruises were jammed, The Bronx zoo expected the biggest attendance in its history.

> Travel advertising took a sudden, self-conscious spurt, but had a frustrated tone. Lake George, N.Y. beckoned soothingly: "Everything within easy walking distance . . . you don't need a car." Sea Island, Ga. boasted: "No rationing of cool sea breezes." The Denver Convention & Visitors' Bureau: ". . . Thousands of young Americans training in and near Denver say they're coming back, when their job is done. . . ." "If," said the Mexican Tourist Association, "you plan to visit your boy in camp in the Southwest. . . ." La Province de Quebec described its humming war plants, its R.C.A.F. training fields, shrugged: "Your French Canadian Vacation is waiting for you, now-- or when Victory is won." The All-Year Club of Southern California frankly gave up, plugged war bonds, said, with a tear in its eye: ". . . After the war . . . Southern California is going to be a more glamorous vacationland than ever!"

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