Our family’s summer vacation in 75 was a trip to Massachusetts, in our recently purchased Chrysler Newport (or maybe it was the last gasp of Dad’s 71 Ford LTD II?). One of Mom’s cousins lived in Wellesley with her husband and two children (Sandi and Jack), and I strongly suspect they had invited us for a couple weeks’ getaway. My parents were never ones to go for ultra-long days in the car, so I believe we took three days each way (Youngstown, OH was one stop; somewhere in eastern PA was likely the other).
First came time spent around Boston: we almost certainly took a walking tour of the historical parts of downtown, and I distinctly remember doing Lexington/Concord up right. After a few days, we drifted down to Plymouth, where Mom’s cousin’s husband’s family owned two adjacent houses located practically on Cape Cod, south of downtown. We stayed for a few days in the larger, older one—it had high ceilings, huge rooms, and a long front porch that ran most of the length of the house. Our relatives were around for some part of our time there.
I imagine we walked along the beach, saw Plymouth Rock and the replica of the Mayflower, and visited Plimoth Plantation. I received my first extended exposure to episodes of Our Gang on morning television. Sandi and Jack were a few years younger than Amy and I, but we all got along famously.
It must have been over a weekend that cousins from their father’s side of the family came down from Boston to the other house on the property, one that was closer to the shore. They were another brother/sister pair, this time closer to my age, probably just a bit older. Sitting on their deck, they taught me how to play Mille Bornes; for sheltered little-eleven-year-old-me, it was somewhere on the spectrum of scandalous to impressive as they sang “but I got so damn depressed” when “Sister Golden Hair” came on the radio while we played cards, in front of the adults.
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I’m close to positive that the song we heard most frequently in the car on that trip was “Love Will Keep Us Together.” Amy and I definitely didn’t mind—we both liked it quite a bit. I was the better part of a year away from knowing about AT40, but I intuited nonetheless at year’s end that the Captain and Tennille had scored the #1 song of 75. On this show, it had dropped to #8 after a four-week run at the top.
The Music of My Life 