Things on vacation become obligatory by default, as a result of having happened more than once.

For instance, jigsaw puzzles. A specific jigsaw puzzle. Two or three of them, laid out one by one with one person taking out the pieces and turning them face up, then assembling the border for another person to fill in. I am the border person, and my adult child is the filler-in. I may be wrong about the roles, but that’s how they tend to work out. Presently, the second jigsaw puzzle (the annual one) is out on the table waiting for someone blurry with sun and dehydration to work on it seriously, in solitude.

Another tradition is the grandson trying to get on his father’s nerves, and succeeding. The two of them picking at one another in quiet, peeevish tones, grandson grinning, father looking disapproving and periodically smearing grandson with sun block or wiping him down. Grandson should spray his father with a water pistol, or fling sand dangerously near him. Father should attempt to read a book.

Other parent should arrive and take grandchild down to the water, where they dig industriously for sand crabs, in total agreement with one another. The placing of the sand crab in the grandson’s hands is obligatory, followed by the presentation to the grandmother and a ceremonial photograph of the sand crab, whereupon it is replaced in the sand near the water.

A stroll down the shops should take place. Repeated strolls. A number of useless articles should be purchased, including a garish tie-dyed sweatshirt that is on sale for $10.00. Everyone in the party is responsible for buying at least one item they will look at when they get home and consign to a bathroom or a beach collection.

Food should be eaten. Everyone should get a little dehydrated. Dinner should be summer food eaten on the quiet, breezy porch. This last is a new tradition, because last year we ate in the garage of the prior place. A faint oil smell was a sort of spice.

There are some traditions that no longer exist, like card playing in the evenings. Nobody in this stage of the family plays cards the way my parents and my grandparents did, or Monopoly. But everyone in this stage is reading a book, or two.

All of these traditions take place in the complete absence of coherent thought, because the point of vacation is to make thinking, even worrying, almost impossible. It’s a tradition. Well, aside from my lectures about developmental levels, teacher beliefs, and the roles of the two in the academizing of kindergarten, and aside from my adult child’s explanation of why Pride and Prejudice is about capitalism. There should be no useful conversation otherwise.

A great deal of Nothing should occur.

So far, so good.