Vacation Time

"It's not the way you play the game that counts; it's whether you survive." This is how a friend of John Kennedy's describes the problem of matching the "vim and vigah" of the Kennedy clan at play. Not since Teddy Roosevelt has the U.S. had such an active First Family--and the tab for being a Kennedy guest is often a heart-pounding, muscle-aching round of activities. Last week, like many other Americans, the Kennedys were deep in vacation plans, and training for vacation as if they were about to be landed on the primitive beaches of Borneo.

Off to Ravello. While Jack Kennedy played the summer bachelor in Washington, Jackie Kennedy stayed at Squaw Island near Hyannisport with Caroline and John Jr.--and that meant swimming, walking, trampoline-hopping and waterskiing. Next week she flies to Ravello on Italy's western coast, where Sister Lee Radziwill has rented the Villa Sangro, a 900-year-old, nine-room palace perched 1,200 feet above the Bay of Salerno.

Jackie and Caroline and accompanying Secret Service men will go on a commercial plane. John Jr. will be shipped off to stay with his grandmother, Mrs. Hugh Auchincloss. in Newport, R.I.

The Villa Sangro in Ravello was built in the 11th century for the first Bishop of Ravello, and has harbored such guests as Richard Wagner and Queen Juliana.

Though the villa also has an excellent view of the 13th century cathedral campanile and the town piazza, Jackie will have to drive about 20 minutes to get to its beach house, or else gingerly descend 282 steps carved into the steep rock. Aside from swimming from the rocks (there is no beach), she will certainly have a chance to water-ski in the bay.

Little Olympics. Next week Attorney General Robert Kennedy and his family will also leave on a brief vacation--of a somewhat different sort. With their four older children, Bobby and Ethel will travel west to Washington to fish, hike, and then camp out in the Olympic Mountains ("America's last frontier"). They have trained for the trip by frequent games of touch football (and in Ethel's case, by immersion tests in the Kennedy swimming pool); they may also be accompanied by Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, who may not be a touch footballer but knows a thing or two about mountains. Bobby's three younger children, aged five, four and two, will stay on at Hyannisport, presumably to train for a later assault on Mount Everest.

The President, whose vacation does not come till Jackie returns from Italy, last week continued his weekend jaunts to Cape Cod, where he joined in a family celebration of Jackie's 33rd birthday. Otherwise, most of the time at the Cape is devoted to the Kennedys' own Little Olympics. Rain or shine, the unbroken pace goes on from dawn until dusk. The first Kennedy swim of the day on weekends is likely to be at 7 a.m., preceded by a run of a mile or so up the beach. Since sitting down is somehow considered bad form, touch football fills in the "rest periods" between tennis, swimming, waterskiing, sailing and "dragging."

Plucky Myopic. Reckless physical bravery is often expected of Kennedy guests, and the quickest road to acceptance for an outsider is some act of dazzling physical courage. As many as three "draggers" hang onto life preservers towed behind the Kennedy sloop Victura. The stiffer the breeze, the better the sport--since the dragger thus swallows more waves and finds it harder not to drown.

A nearsighted guest, narrowly missing a partly submerged rock while on water skis a few weeks ago, piled up a lot of Kennedy credit for his pluck. Two guest touch footballers also won approval recently when they ran for a difficult catch and disappeared into a clump of rosebushes; it took four players to pull them out, and they spent the rest of the day picking thorns out of their skins.

As an alternative to reckless bravery, brute stamina is acceptable. The idea is to accumulate a staggering number of "events" in the course of a day. A lawyer friend visiting the Robert Kennedys gained favorable attention by participating in five events before breakfast; he had reached 14--from trampoline-jumping to eating a sandwich with sand in it--before the day was over. Astronaut John Glenn piled up favorable mention by bicycle riding, swimming, playing touch football and baseball, falling into the bay while water-skiing with Jackie, and barely ducking a crashing boom after he hesitated for a moment in carrying out the President's order to haul in the main sheet. After sundown, guests are mercifully allowed to fade slightly, and everyone is in bed by midnight. After all, next day is apt to be a hard day at the Kennedys.

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