Summer vacations began Memorial weekend. Our holiday resort came complete with our own personal Barney Fife.

Summer vacations unofficially started this past weekend. For proof, just check the rates at any beach hotel and the lines at the beach restaurants. We were there.

We weren’t crazy enough to collide with the bikers on the South Carolina beaches. We headed north to some less inhabited patches of sand and sea. Apparently we weren’t the only ones with this idea. Going anywhere along the beach strand was like trying to buy milk at the grocery store before a snowstorm. On our one excursion out to a restaurant we got to eat lunch at a comfortable four in the afternoon. On the bright side, we managed to let the meal double as supper.

Fathers are always excited about getting away from work to enjoy the beach with their young ‘uns. It means a nice relaxing weekend full of fun. To kick things off, Mom hands Dad a bottle of fruity smelling suntan lotion and asks him smear it all over his children’s squirming bodies. Next comes the swim suits, which if the kids are toddlers means squeezing their suits over those puffed up diapers made for swimming. To add to Dad’s relaxation, the cooler has to be loaded with a dozen drinks and snacks, and enough ice to sink the Titanic. Lucky families have modern wheeled coolers. Unlucky families point Dad towards the cooler and tell him to heave it across the two-hundred degree sand to the perfect beach spot, which is most certainly not within short distance of the boardwalk.

To ensure his comfort, Mom goes out of her way to load Dad up with a second haul of necessities: several chairs, towels, sand toys, a radio and the inevitable umbrella. Once the chairs and umbrella are set up, Dad is ready to sit down and relax. The kids, however, will have had enough of the sand and salt. After all, what kid nowadays does anything for more than five minutes? You can cook an entire microwave meal and eat it in five minutes. If you take out all the commercials, you can watch an entire television show in five minutes. If you watch the South Carolina weather, it can completely change in five minutes. Five minutes is forever. So, after five minutes, Dad complies with the wishes of his adorable children and heads to the pool.

At our resort, the pool was overseen by a security guard we named Barney Fife. The only difference between him and his television equivalent was the bullet. The one at the pool shined his bullet more often.

Barney Fife the security guard wanted everyone to know how very important he was. He did his job with the efficiency of a buzzard sitting on a telephone pole waiting for road kill. If any kids under five entered the pool without the required swimming diapers, he kicked them out. (“But he’s potty trained. He’s in kindergarten!” “Rule 501.32 makes it clear, Ma’am. All guests under five.”) If a kid ran across the pool area, Barney Fife was there to put an end to the horrible injustice. If more than the appointed limit of five people dared dangle their feet in the hot tub, Fife evicted the extra pair of legs. When three little kids jumped into the pool (children jumping into a pool? How dare they!) Fife lined them up for the firing squad – which consisted mainly of him and his bullet.

Okay, it wasn’t a real bullet, but when he pointed his finger, the kids’ whole day was shot.

The good thing about Deputy Fife the security guard was that Dad actually got to rest. Not because Fife took over, but because he scared the kids back to the beach. Even the salt and sand couldn’t rub a person as raw as Fife.

I have thought of a good job for Fife, though. If the restaurants employed him, we may have gotten our lunch on time. He’d keep the lines moving.