It’s Memorial Day weekend and I wish I were here. Here camping in New York State, that is.

For the past several years, we’ve deferred our Memorial Day weekend camping trips to my son’s Boy Scout activities. This year, the troop was supposed to go camping the weekend of June 2-4, but the Scoutmaster cancelled it two days ago due to a lack of participation.

That’s really sad.

These days, youths and their families seem torn in too many different directions. A baseball game here. A lacrosse game there. A dance class there. Ping! There goes another text! Ooops,cancel that relaxing commune in nature with no electronics. No time for that.

If I sound disgusted, that’s because i”m making little effort to hide it, although I refrain from getting nasty about. I’m just very disappointed about where some appear to be placing their priorities these days.

Next year, I’m making our own camping reservations for Memorial Day.

I know the title of this blog is “Now and Then,” but when my allergies are flaring up as they are today, all I can think of is the now.

My allergies are the opposite of fine wine. They definitely haven’t mellowed with age. This year seems to be particularly bad, at least where I am now in Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna Valley. From what I’ve read, doctors write so many allergy prescriptions in the area, they refer to the malady as “the Susquehanna Drip.”

This is why spending time in New York State makes me feel better not only psychologically, but literally, physically. Fresh Central New York air never fails clears my leaky, swollen sinuses. I know I’m not imagining it, too. Why? Because whenever I’m traveling south from New York on I-81, I can sense a heavy wetness in the air around 45 minutes before the southcentral Pennsylvania region.

The humidity gets even worse going further south into Washington, D.C., but that’s another story. Let’s just say that after touring Washington in July 2015, I never want to go there again in the summer.

When staying in Syracuse this year over Easter, my son-in-law’s mother gave me a new perspective on New York State’s abundant annual snowfall. The abundant snow is what helps to give New York it’s beautiful clear lakes. I dare say that it also helps to cleanse the air and as a result, the residual Susquehanna Drip from my clogged sinuses.

Yet another reason for me to proclaim, “I Love New York.” “New York: No post nasal drip.” Think that will inspire the tourists?

Here are some truths I’ve realized during the course of my lifetime:

What goes up must come down, especially if it’s your bank balance.

He who laughs last feels dumb because he was the last to get the joke.

Experience may be the mother of wisdom, but Frank Zappa is the Mother of Invention.

Elvis has left the building, but you still can buy his lamps online.

Mrs. Hall got the full Monty.

Man cannot live by bread alone, especially if there’s no butter.

Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither was Syracuse.

(OK, I admit the last one is from an old “Three Stooges” movie, but it’s still a great line.)

“Some parents mourn the loss children who are still here.”

A friend of mine posted this meme on Facebook the other day and it still haunts me. I didn’t need to look at the meme’s fine print to know that it was referring to addiction. Unfortunately, I’m all too familiar with the scenario.

My daughter, who turns 23 on May 26, will be spending her birthday in jail and it’s not for the first time. This time, she’s been in jail since April 10 after being charged with public drunkenness and disorderly while on parole. My daughter is an alcoholic who relapsed despite a previous nine-month jail sentence for drunken driving offenses followed by six months of rehab and a halfway house.

When Erin came home from the halfway house in November, we had high hopes for her. Then in March, her previous boyfriend who also is an alcoholic was released from jail. That’s when things got really bad really fast. We told her to stay away from him, but of course, she didn’t. They were arrested together that fateful Monday night in April.

I don’t know what is going to happen to Erin now. As far as i know, her revocation hearing hasn’t even been scheduled yet. My husband and I are totally up in arms and don’t know what to do about her anymore. We’ve already given her love and support, we’ve given her tough love, we’ve already done all that we believe possible. After being let down so many times, however, we’re afraid to hope anymore.

Addiction by itself is ugly, but when combined with impulsiveness and bad judgement, it becomes a ugly,frothing monster.

I came across these old photos the other day while cleaning. Looking at them closely this morning, a feeling of wistfulness swept over me. As the title of this blog states, sometimes I simply miss being a kid.

In the photo above, I am nearly 4 years old and eating a picnic lunch with my cousins Jon and Jay in our grandparents’ yard during the summer of 1963. Jon, in the foreground, displays his peanut butter and jelly sandwich for all to see as our grandmother’s morning wash hangs to dry directly behind us.

While some might see this as a mundane scene, I no doubt saw this as a great adventure at the time. Sometimes we need to stop and remember how the wonderment of simple pleasures like this once  captured us as children.

Here, a couple of neighborhood friends have joined my cousins and me on my aunt’s patio. It’s 1966 and judging by our attire and the cake on the table, we’re celebrating Jon’s ninth birthday on April 25. To give you an idea of how much time has passed since then, Jon turned 60 a few weeks ago!

I’m the little 6-year-old girl  here wearing a big yellow head scarf against my will. My aunt put it on me in an effort to combat the constant ear infections I endured that spring. Her intentions were good, but it didn’t work. I still had my tonsils taken out in Rome Memorial Hospital that July.

It looked like an unseasonably cool day that New York spring, but we didn’t care. It was fun to dine on Kool-Aid and cake al fresco, although I didn’t yet know that sophisticated term. I just knew it was fun, even if I did have to wear big bulky grownup scarf over my ears.

In honor of that new Facebook game that makes people guess which one of 10 concerts someone never attended, here is my version of that game: Which place haven’t I ever visited in Oneida County?

1. Delta Lake State Park.

2. The Saranac Brewery Tour.

3. Union Station.

4. Verona Beach State Park.

5. Oneida County Jail.

6. Sylvan Beach Amusement Park.

7. Oriskany Monument.

8. Black River Canal Museum

9. Fort Stanwix National Park

10. Rome City Jail.

The correct answer? The Oneida County Jail. I passed it many times in the past beause it was near the Oneida County Airport where my father once worked, but I never once set foot in the facility.

If you guessed the Rome Police Jail, you are incorrect! I’ve been there. I was taken into the Rome City Jail at the tender age of 7,  but it wasn’t because I had gotten an early start to a life of crime. Instead, it was because my Brownie troop toured the Rome Justice Building one day. The main thing that stuck out in my mind from that visit were seeing cell toilets that were out in the open. If for no other reason, I realized that day that I never wanted to go to jail because of its extreme lack of toileting privacy.

Yet another reason why crime doesn’t pay.

As I’ve already mentioned here several times, my father worked for the former Mohawk Airlines at Oneida County Airport from December 1958 until the company merged with Allegheny Airlines in 1971. He continued to work for Allegheny and its subsequent incarnations — i.e. USAir, USAirways — untl retiring in 1993. Shown above is my father’s Mohawk business card from May 1967.

 (Fortunately, my grandmother, and later, my Aunt Marilyn, saved just about everything, including this card.)

This month, “Greater Utica Magazine’s” cover story is an extensive look at the history of Mohawk Airlines. Judging by the response the magazine’s announcement about this article received on Facebook, there’s still plenty of enthusiastic people  who either worked for Mohawk or had a relative who did so, flew on the airline, or just remember the days when it was around.

So it you get a chance, check this out. As a Mohawk daughter, I found the article and photos fascinating. The issue is available in print or online at http://gumagazine.com.