Summer’s End

Growing up, the best part of the school year for me, like so many kids, was summer vacation. It seemed to be an endless stretch of freedom before the beginning of the school year was in sight. Maybe our vision of this changes as we age, but it seems like summer slips by in the blink of an eye nowadays.
Here at the Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts & Humanities (MAC), our summer focus is on family things — kids tours and events, family events at the Lighthouse, Family Fridays at the Physick Estate – all aimed at stretching the summer and filling it with fun stuff to do.
If your kids are like most, usually by the time August rolls around, they’re bored. You probably don’t see much more than the tops of their heads as they text their friends: “I’m bored. Are you bored?” So, while there’s still time, take advantage of some of things we do.
Family Fridays at the Physick Estate continue through the end of August. Tour the Physick’s mansion at 11:15 a.m. or 12:15 p.m. for a family-friendly, more interactive tour than our usual guided tours. Your kids will be amazed that youngsters their age lived without electronics, and you’ll come away appreciating some of the things that make our lives easier today, like microwaves.
For many of our visitors, climbing the Cape May Lighthouse is a regular part of their visits to the shore, and there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be yours, too. After all, the lighthouse is in our own back yard, and is an important piece of local history. Don’t tell the kids that, because they’ll think you’re trying to get them to learn something before Labor Day. They’ll get the story anyway as they climb the steps and see the old photos and read about this beacon’s history. And they will have fun doing it. The lighthouse is open every day.
Same goes for a trolley ride. When’s the last time you did that? For a lot of us, it was probably when we were here as visitors (before we decided we just couldn’t stand to leave anymore!). MAC has a variety of both day and evening trolley tours, even a bunch of ghost tours for those who want to know what’s going bump in the night along the town’s historic streets.
Another place that both parents and kids can enjoy is the World War II Lookout Tower, out on Sunset Boulevard, also open every day. Take a look at your kids’ video games and you’ll see most have an element of warfare to them. Well, at the Tower, you and your kids can see what the real thing was like on a local level, through the interpretive panels and photos and uniform displays that tell the story of Cape May’s role in World War II and the part the Lookout Tower played in keeping our shores safe.
These are all fun things to do with your kids and give their thumbs a rest. But I bet there will be some photos and Facebook posts popping up as they share with their friends the fun they had. The fact that they absorbed some local history? We’ll just keep that between us.
— Barraclough is director of publications and website at MAC