THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 3, 1995 TAG: 9509060657
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KRYS STEFANSKY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 194 lines
A COUNTRY-WESTERN wind blew the chalk dust out of Robert Lombard's mind this summer.
Lombard, a fifth-grade teacher at Pembroke Elementary in Virginia Beach, spent his summer vacation taking as many as 20 hours of country-western dance lessons each week.
We're talking serious foot stompin'.
When it comes to school vacations, there's no hard-and-fast rule about how to get some R&R from the 3Rs.
Some people load the car with kids and spouse, leave the dog behind and head south, west or north, anywhere but home. Some look for beach, some for mountains and some, like Lombard, shake a leg.
Students, teachers and parents at Pembroke Elementary, like those at schools everywhere, this week will be answering the question ``Whatcha do this summer?''
Lombard was in excellent form one night in late July, just a whoop and a holler from Lynnhaven Mall.
A black felt cowboy hat tipped down low over his eyes, he went slip-sliding across the Country World and Billiards dance floor in pointy-toed Scandinavian elk cowboy boots.
Hips in slim black jeans barely moving, upper body locked in a dancer's embrace of his partner, he led a plump, middle-aged woman - in green T-shirt, shorts, ankle socks and heels - smoothly down the floor.
He cut a fine figure.
``He's good,'' said one spectator. ``Don't think he's been dancing long.''
Hasn't.
Lombard started just last February, tired of living vicariously through his ballerina daughter, principal dancer with the Mobile Ballet in Mobile, Ala., Lombard's hometown.
``I hadn't done any country dancing before. I was too old for ballet. And it sounded like more fun than the solitude of running,'' he said. Lombard burns up 8 to 10 miles of pavement a day.
It didn't hurt, either, that women tend to like country-western dancing.
So Lombard, who is single, started with line dances. Took to the Electric Slide, Watermelon Crawl and the Boot Scootin' Boogie like a horse to water. Pretty soon he was looking for lessons in the two-step and swing, his favorites now.
His dance instructor told him he had potential, even asked him to be her partner.
``So I decided to get a foothold in, maybe with a long-term goal of competing,'' he said. He tore up the wall-to-wall carpet in his living room, exposing hardwood flooring and the perfect practice surface. By summer's end, Lombard's reverse hammerlocks, pinwheels to carousels and ferris wheel turns were getting second looks.
He can't wait to pop a few moves on his fifth-graders this fall.
``So many of the kids are into country-western dancing,'' he said. Before being hired at Pembroke this summer, Lombard taught at White Oaks Elementary. ``At breaks, a lot of them would show me what they knew and I'd show them what I'd learned.''
Wait till the kids at Pembroke Elementary see what he's learned this summer.
Jackie H. Aupperle needs a vacation after her vacation. She's tired from spending the summer reliving her childhood.
Last spring she heard her daughter, Anna, a rising first-grader, could go to Girl Scout summer day camp for free if her mom became a camp counselor. Aupperle, a Scout herself for 11 years, signed right up.
``I wanted to go to camp,'' she sighed. ``It made me nostalgic.''
So for four weeks in July and August, during part of a record-setting heat wave, Aupperle climbed out of bed at 5 a.m., packed her bug spray, suntan lotion, water shoes, craft supplies and lists of names and headed for Camp Linkhorn at Seashore State Park/First Landing State Park. Every day, she was met by hordes of little campers.
The 34-year-old mom got nostalgia, all right. She also got a grown-up's perspective on camp.
``It's tiring,'' she said. ``It's dirty. It's buggy. It's hot. I don't ever remember being that dirty. There's bug spray all over your shoes and the dirt sticks to it like glue.
``Then on the beach, you've got sand in your sunscreen and you know their mothers think, `God, what do they do at camp?' '' she said, laughing in her air-conditioned apartment near Pembroke Mall.
Anna, 6, is a Daisy Scout.
At camp, every day started with the Pledge of Allegiance and the Girl Scout Promise. Then came setting up camp, dragging out trash cans, filling jugs with ice water.
She found that 6-year-olds can't hear group instructions.
``You have to go down the line, telling each one, `Please put your things into your backback,' '' she said.
Each day included a hike across Shore Drive and a 40-minute swim at the beach. Then, after a shower, ``You have to tell them to dry themselves - `OK Megan, you're not dry. Dry yourself and your clothes will go on easier.' ''
As the sweltering days wore on, Aupperle began to worry she'd lose friendships over this trip back into her childhood, ``I talked two other mothers into doing this. And sometimes they probably hated me for it, but most of the time I think they enjoy it.''
The Daisy Scouts wove placemats, made salt dough beads, sponge-painted windsocks and built bugs out of rocks and sticks. Aupperle taught them the buddy system and to take a nature walk.
The girls hiked, hiked some more . . . then dropped like flies.
``We'd hike to the Visitor's Center and they were tired and all wanted to lay down on the benches,'' Aupperle said. ``But at the end of the day, they hug you and they're sad to leave.''
Aupperle spent her Girl Scout years on carefree camping trips to Hawaii, Denver, California and Wyoming.
``I feel like I want to call all those old leaders and thank them. I didn't know how much work it was,'' she said.
Darnell Levy hasn't a clue how much work camp is. All this fourth-grader knows is that he went, he had a good time and he wants to go again.
``The next time I go, my cousin wants to go with me,'' he said.
Darnell told him everything about his week at Triple R Ranch in Chesapeake.
``There was canoeing - that's where you go out on the lake. There was horsemanship - that's where you ride horses - and there was swimming and the water was 10 feet deep,'' he said, looking closely at a picture of himself in a group of fellow campers dubbed the Calf Ropers. ``And they had this thing called the Trading Post, and you could buy candy and stuff.''
A kid's slice of heaven.
Canoeing offered the most drama.
``Once we saw a dead dog in the water. And we saw dead fish under a bridge and you had to paddle hard to go fast and you had to steer,'' he said, frowning. ``I couldn't steer so the lady had to show me.''
Camp also held unique opportunities for socializing.
``Once we got to sit in a tree house and eat with the Calf Roper girls and we got gross,'' he said, grinning sheepishly. ``We chewed our food and stuck our tongues out.''
He liked the camp's Bible studies, a hayride, sleeping on the top bed of the three-level bunk and mealtimes.
Darnell came home with legs full of bug bites and boasting that he hadn't been homesick for his family.
The rest of his summer was OK.
``But camp was the best thing I did,'' he said.
When he can, Arthur W. Taylor III sneaks a taste of history into every family vacation.
``Just like I was dragged to historic sites when I was a child,'' said Taylor, special-education program coordinator at Pembroke Elementary.
This summer the three Taylor children and Mom and Dad loaded into a Dodge Caravan outfitted with a portable TV and headed for Walt Disney World in Florida. On the way, Taylor watched his plans crumble.
They hit St. Augustine first.
``Here we were in the oldest city in America and I wanted to see the sights. The kids said no,'' said Taylor. ``I was a history major in college so I had side trips planned. But when I mentioned getting up at 5 a.m. to drive to Cape Canaveral to see the space shuttle launched, the kids said, `Dad, you're kidding.' ''
They headed directly for Mickey and the Magic Kingdom.
All things considered, it was a good road trip. Andrew, 11, kept down all his meals, a feat noted by the family since a trip to Myrtle Beach one summer when Andrew wolfed down ice cream on a lunch stop partway there and then promptly got sick all over his father, who was driving.
This summer the Taylors, Art, his wife, Debra, and their children, Amy, 17, Andrew, and Laura, 6, spent a week together for what Art Taylor suspects might have been their last family vacation. Next June, Amy will likely begin her first full-time job before she heads for college.
The Taylors headed south with Dad at the wheel. It takes 14 to 16 hours to drive to Orlando, ``depending on the number of potty breaks,'' said Taylor.
To pass the time, the Taylors count Waffle Houses.
``It drives my wife bananas because I'm supposed to be watching the road. There are close to 100 between here and Kissimmee,'' said Taylor, who counts even when all the other players doze off. ``I won, but I had to keep waking my wife to verify them. That could have been why it wore a little thin with her.''
In Florida, the Taylors met Debra Taylor's parents and her sister's family. The entourage numbered 12.
They spent a week visiting Universal Studios, the Magic Kingdom and Epcot Center.
Taylor rated the trip a ``10.'' It scored moments sure to stand out in the Taylor family history, albeit for different reasons.
``The first night we ate at a restaurant where 900 people were all eating medieval fare and you pay lots and lots of money for your dinner. There are no utensils. You eat with your fingers, so the kids loved it.''
They rode rides and saw parades, fireworks, trained animals, cartoon characters, and even Tinkerbell flying into the night sky.
Taylor went beyond the call of duty once or twice.
``Amy, Laura, and I stood in line for 40 minutes in the blazing sun for the Dumbo ride and, guess what, we did it twice,'' he said.
He's looking forward to an adult vacation next, maybe a cruise, he mused. And that hankering for history just won't go away.
``I haven't dragged them to the battlefields yet, except Yorktown,'' Taylor said. ``But it ain't over yet.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
Robert Lombard
Darnell Levy
Taylor family
Jackie Aupperle
by CNB