{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"Thirty Years","description":"After thirty years of the same family tradition - I give some thought to the future. ----- For the thirtieth year in a row my SUV left my garage headed for the North Carolina Coast the second to last Saturday in July. If we weren\u2019t in it, it would go by itself. It\u2019s what we do. It\u2019s what the car does. And it was packed tight with everything from fishing gear, to bed sheets, to food, to 150 oysters in the shell on ice, two cakes from Bake My Day, and a case of get-along juice, also known as wine. My in-laws have rented a house on Ocean Isle Beach in North Carolina every summer and we are all expected to be there \u2013 there were sixteen of us. Question for you \u2013 Name one spouse you know or have ever even heard of that\u2019s vacationed in the same place, in nearly the same house, with the same people, on the same days every summer for thirty consecutive years. Unless that person is me or my sister-in-law, that person doesn\u2019t exist. I can\u2019t speak for my sister-in-law, but it makes me\u2026 Well\u2026 I don\u2019t know what it makes me. Honestly, it makes me afraid for my life to declare that having vacationed in the same place, in nearly the same house, with the same people on the same days for over half my life that I\u2019m now ready to do something different. It wouldn\u2019t go over well. It's this week at the beach every year plus a few weekends in the fall at my father\u2019s camp in Clarke County, Alabama that I\u2019m reminded of the great disparity in penalties for loud noise in the nighttime versus loud noises in the morning. This does require some explanation: I go to bed early. After about nine PM, I\u2019m useless and am eager to get to sleep and start again the next day. However, some of my family like to whoop it up at night and at 9pm they\u2019re just warming up. They make lots of noise. They\u2019re having a ball. But little consideration is given to those of us that retire early. There\u2019s little penalty applied for keeping us from getting to sleep or waking us after we\u2019ve fallen to sleep. However, the reverse is not the true. I\u2019m an early riser. And early risers must tip-toe through the house, careful to not make a sound or else face the wrath of the late sleepers. Their being inconveniently awakened by the early riser\u2019s God-awful sounds of the unloading of the dishwasher or the brewing of the coffee are intolerable fouls against the family\u2019s 30-year-old tradition. I\u2019ve come to live with it. It\u2019s a small price to pay. It\u2019s not a big deal. But there\u2019s some sort of economy that needs to be flushed out regarding penalties for preventing sleep versus penalties for awakening sleepers. Small penalties are applied for preventing sleep. Large penalties are applied  for awakening sleepers. Its\u2019 not fair but we live with it. How long will this yearly tradition last? I don\u2019t know. My children have grown such that we now need two cars to make the 22 hour round trip. And if we decide stop one year, we\u2019ll know when that week comes because the SUV will go anyway. It\u2019s simply what it does. I\u2019m Cam Marston and I\u2019m just trying to Keep It Real.   ","author_name":"Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston","author_url":"https:\/\/cammarston.com\/keepin-it-real-with-cam-marston\/","html":"