What Did You Learn on Your Summer Vacation?

And now for something completely different… The Wall Street Journal asked five writers to pen brief essays on “What I learned on my summer vacation.”

Here’s my eye-opener from a trip to Cooperstown’s Baseball Hall of Fame. I recommend reading the other writers as well - Junot Diaz, Andrew Rannells, Amanda Foreman and Kevin Williamson. (Gift link here). And let me know what you learned on yours!

Happy August,

Joanne

A Vacation Could Become Your Kid’s Vocation

By Joanne Lipman

When our son was young, I used to yell at him for spending too much time on baseball and not enough on schoolwork. He was a die-hard Yankees fan, and if he wasn’t playing or watching baseball, he was devouring fat statistical baseball almanacs as if they were beach reads.

And so one summer, when his older sister was away at camp, we took 10-year-old Andrew on vacation to Cooperstown, N.Y., to visit the Baseball Hall of Fame. I know nothing about baseball, and frankly didn’t understand the allure. But as Andrew stepped inside, his face lit up in awe and wonder. He lingered over Ty Cobb’s baseball glove, Babe Ruth’s bats and Lou Gehrig’s locker. In the Plaque Gallery of 250-plus honorees, he regaled us with the stories behind what seemed like every one of them.

Later, Andrew and my husband Tom competed in a father-son trivia match. I watched as my two brave combatants faced off in a Jeopardy-style contest against half a dozen far more formidable-looking teams, all boasting sons who looked old enough to shave. My men seemed badly outmatched. And sure enough, they had a wobbly start, as Tom got his first clue wrong.

After that fumble, Tom let Andrew take over. Good call. Andrew’s hand shot up in the air over and again. “Lou Brock played for these teams” (“What are the Cardinals and the Cubs, 1961 to 1979?”). “He holds the record for the most doubles in a single season” (“Who is Boston Red Sox outfielder Earl Webb, 67 in 1931?”).

Then came the final clue, a head-scratcher: “The most expensive baseball card in the world.” Blank looks all around—except for Andrew. “That’s easy,” he piped up, with the correct answer. Our team was victorious!

A wall of plaques of inductees to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y. Photo: Ron Antonelli/Bloomberg News

We didn’t know it at the time, but that vacation changed our son’s life, and taught us something as well. I admit, after we got home I continued to hound Andrew to spend more time on schoolwork and less on baseball. But Cooperstown was the first lesson for me in letting your kids find their own passions, not yours. It made me realize that sometimes, just occasionally, kids really do know better than their parents.

Which is why, about a decade later, we made a return summer-vacation trip to Cooperstown, this time with our daughter and her now-husband in tow. But on this visit to the Hall of Fame, our tour guide was Andrew, who was working there as a summer intern. This time he and Tom watched the trivia contest from the audience—because Andrew had written the questions. At dinner that night, a stranger interrupted us to tell us Andrew was “the best tour guide we ever had.” Andrew would go on, after that, to his current job as an ESPN producer.

That Cooperstown trip taught me that my 10-year-old son was in some ways wiser than his mom. Oh, and I learned one other thing, too. The most valuable baseball card in the world at the time? The T-206 Honus Wagner card. That’s easy!

Joanne Lipman is the author of “Next! The Power of Reinvention in Life and Work.”

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