When I was a child, the word vacation had two sides to it. There was the getting excited about going somewhere, with the packing and the thoughts of swimming and playing in the ocean and seeing our cousins. Then there was the other side. The actual going on vacation.

Our vacation was usually a blitz to Panama City, Florida. White beaches. Cheap seafood. A swimming pool at the Holiday Inn. A strip of cheesy amusements (a trip to The Miracle Mile was supposed to be our reward for good behavior, but we never made it there). And crabs to try and catch (our favorite pastime).

The drive to Florida was usually not too awful. Mother would dose my brother and me with Dramamine and we wouldn't wake up until we were a couple of hours away. Then the other side of the vacation would start. I would need to go to the bathroom and Daddy, who'd already had a "Co-Cola" or two, meaning a Coke with a load of bourbon in it, would be hell-bent to stay on the road. Mother would beg me to hold it. And then when I just couldn't anymore, Daddy would stop by the side of the road and I'd jump out to "tinkle," trying to keep the spray and dust from splashing up around my ankles.

Once we were there, Mother would hook up with her sister, Aunt Faun, and start telling her the latest gossip and stories about Daddy's drinking. Daddy would go deep-sea fishing--one of the single greatest ways to stay away from his wife and children all day and get rip-roaring, up-chucking drunk.

And Uncle James and my cousin Dottie would take us to the pool so we could start on our blister-and-bleed sunburns.

At night, we'd go to Captain Anderson's, Daddy's favorite place to eat and drink himself senseless and the scene of much acting-out by my brother and me. For starters, I'd perfected a routine in which I acted retarded. I would drag a leg, curl an arm, slur words, and dribble spit down my chin before pawing a stranger and saying, "Do you have a quarter?"

My brother did this too. We thought it was hilarious. And my parents let us do it. And they laughed. I feel real sad about that right now. I feel sad and ashamed that we made fun of people.

At bedtime, Daddy, overweight, drunk, sweaty, and puffing on a big nasty stogie, would crank the room air-conditioner down to meat-locker cool. And since my meat had cooked all day in the Florida sun, the contrast was painful. Wracked with chills, I would shake, shiver, cry, and ask for more blankets. Mother would try to put lotion on me, cover me up and try to shut me up. Daddy would get annoyed about us "whining little piss-ants" and then knock Mother around for a while. Finally things would settle down and we'd get a little sleep.

The next day, we'd wake up feeling good enough to get outside and explore. And refry ourselves. So there'd be another day of baking, bitching, boozing (Daddy), and then bingeing on Captain Anderson's famous red snapper, the king of fish, and as many onion rings as we could choke down. After three days of this, I was usually sick with bronchitis. Some of the sun blisters would bleed. And Daddy would be in an almost constant state of agitation, drinking, fighting, and then buying us stuff to try and make up for being so mean.

It was an intense cycle. It was what my brother and I knew. We never thought that it might not be normal. When you're a little kid, you think everybody does the same things you do.

Finally it would be time to go home. Huddled in the back seat of our air-conditioned car, I would try to stay warm. It was ironic as hell. It was hell. Outside it was 100 degrees. In our car, it was so cold you could almost see your breath. And then, to top it all off, Daddy would light another fat cigar, take off his shirt, lock down the pedal, and do his best to get us home and dropped off fast so he could hook up with his drinking buddies and rid himself of the taint of weak children and a bitchy wife.

By the time we got home I usually had a high fever. After Mother took me to get a fanny-full of penicillin, I'd be in the bed for four or five days to recover from all this family fun.

This vacation insanity happened again and again. Once on the way to Canada, Daddy turned the car around in a blaze of rage--in spitting distance of our Niagara Falls destination--and drove straight back to Georgia. That time I had pneumonia. Another time, in Mexico, after Daddy discovered a drink called The Zombie, we all turned into the walking dead.

I will never, ever forget the incredible sadness I felt for my brother, who was eight or nine at the time of the Zombie trip. We were eating supper at the hotel's alfresco restaurant and saloon. Drunk and bragging about his business successes, Daddy bought drinks for people up and down the bar. Gave $50 to a total stranger. And then, when he needed to go to the bathroom, he had to ask my little brother for help. And here was this child--red hair, freckles, cute little suit--helping this huge, tottering man look for the toilet.

Careening off the wall, Daddy kept talking about needing to "take a leak." Finally, he couldn't move anymore until he whizzed. So he unzipped his pants in front of the people he'd been bragging to before, pulled out his giant penis, and urinated all over the wall as my brother tried to hold him up. I don't remember what Mother was doing. I mostly remember my brother, who was so embarrassed that his face was on fire and his eyes filled with tears. There was the urge to cry. And the urge to laugh. But mostly there was the urge to get the hell out of there. The bad news was Daddy was drunk again. The good news was he was too drunk to beat up Mother.

At daylight, we loaded Daddy into the way-back of the station wagon. Mother got behind the wheel. And I don't remember stopping until we made it home to Georgia.

That might have been the last time we tried to go anywhere as a family. That was fine with me. It was more family fun than I could live with. Though I do appreciate the valuable lessons I learned. Because even when you're not happy you can learn a lot. Like how not to have a family vacation. And that alcoholism is a disease that kills even the best of intentions--and what should be the happiest of times.