The Old Hamm & the Sea
in which we made a god-damn plan
“I like to have a plan,” is something I’ve heard my father say one billion times. The “plan” could mean many things — his Thanksgiving dinner menu to his weekly to-do list to what time he’s going to leave for his Democrat meeting — but if I’ve learned anything in the last 40 years, it’s that you’ve gotta have a plan. How can you possibly expect to go anywhere or do anything without a plan?
If he asks you, “what’s the plan?” it probably means you should have already told him said plan. Alternatively, he’s asking this question because you’ve already come up with the plan, discussed the plan at least three times, and he is now asking you to confirm that plan.
I say all this with nothing but love and understanding, as I have recently made the shocking self-discovery that I, too, want to know the plan.
I want to make a plan, I want you to confirm that plan, and I want to execute the plan. You need to have a god-damn plan.
It’s been a decade since we first talked about the idea of taking a trip to the Florida Keys — Dad and his partner, Debbie, visited with some friends and loved it. Five years later, we talked about it some more.
“I think we should go,” I’d urge Dad over beers on his screened-in porch. “Let’s plan it!”
We talked about the Hemingway House and the beautiful drive down the Keys and the dollar bills stapled to the walls at No Name Pub and Judy Blume’s bookstore. We talked about what a great trip it could be.
Every year we’d say, “Maybe next year.”
Each time I’d say, “We can’t wait forever!” using Judy Blume’s age as an excuse. (Sorry, Judy.)
This year, we finally made the plan. While I was home for the solar eclipse this April, I insisted I wasn’t heading back to Chicago until we’d booked the trip. We shared Airbnb listings, debating the pros and cons. I looked up flights from Chicago and flights from Indianapolis. We booked the rental car. We triple-checked the timing.
We booked the trip.
In the last two years, I’ve started writing packing lists in my notebook to prepare for any trip, whether it’s a one-night work trip or a 10-day trip to Europe. I liked to think this was all very Joan Didion of me — if only I could take such a minimalistic approach to my packing!
While writing my Key West packing list in one notebook and looking at my work to-do list in another and my personal to-do list in yet another, I had to laugh at myself.
I like to have a plan.
It wasn’t that it was so Joan Didion of me. It was so very Greg Hamm of me.
I can promise you with 1,000% certainty that right now my father has at least one to-do list going at this very moment. I can see him with his morning coffee leaning over the kitchen island, brow furrowed, checking things off, writing the next line.
After we checked in our Airbnb last week, we needed to make a grocery list. Dad was appalled to realize he’d traveled without any paper or a pen. I handed him my extra pen and told him not to worry; I had paper. “I never travel without my journal,” I said, and as I started to rip out one page, I paused. He might want extra.
I ripped out a couple pages, and handed them to him, so we could keep making our plans.
