New York, New York, it’s a wonderful town … especially on someone else’s dime.

That’s where my little sister, Lauren, is. The dime, along with two nickels, 83 pennies, a roll of 20s, and a small bank loan charging 63 percent interest, is thanks to my dad. It’s summertime, and for a 12-year-old kid, the living’s cheap and easy.

Ahh, little kid summer vacation. Is there nothing better? My mother never truly appreciated travel, and considered leaving the great state of Florida to be a waste of time, and possibly treasonous.

Not my dad. With him we went everywhere as kids, and twice to New York. I’ll never forget our first trip to New York when I couldn’t have been much older than 12 and my brother, Scott, maybe 10. The three of us had driven all the way to the Adirondacks, those picturesque mountains in upstate New York where we hiked for a week with the Sierra Club.
I have good memories of that part of the trip — a bear breaking into a car and stealing the giant tub of peanut butter I was supposed to carry, chipmunks who could perform “Mission: Impossible”-like stunts to trump the bears and vegetarian cashew chili that tasted like seasoned mud.

But the best memories, the kind that don’t peel away with time, are of driving back through New York City. We only spent the day there, pulling up in my dad’s Toyota 4-Runner with its blanket of dust and muck, and the makeshift car-top carrier holding our hiking gear flapping in the wind. We must have looked like the Clampets.

I don’t remember seeing the biggies of New York that day — the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building or the Twin Towers. Instead, it was something much more, well, New York — heat, noise and confusion. I remember staring wide-eyed out the window as we drove in, and buildings so tall I couldn’t see the tops.

I remember the parking garage where we parked the car, and thinking it was some fly-by-night operation run by crooks and mobsters. They smiled when they took the car keys and I knew they were going to sell it and our stuff to someone in Chinatown, wherever that was.

Right around the corner was the Museum of Natural History, a castle loaded with giant whales dangling from the ceilings and dinosaurs who needed braces trolling the floors.

And I remember how we got lost looking for the way out of the city and ending up deep in the heart of Harlem.

A year or two later, we went back for a week, and again it’s not the landmarks I remember but the experiences — bad Chinese food, hot dogs on the street, subway rides to who-knows-where, FAO Schwartz and picking up acorns in Central Park that I would later display as the “Nuts of New York.”

I’ve learned something about life from vacations — it’s not about what you do; it’s about the experience while you’re doing it. And that’s especially true when you’re a Thompson. My little sister is realizing that now, Thompson-style.

For her, I hope it’s just as exciting a trip as the first time her two brothers went. Moments you’ll never forget. Trips to Harlem. More soggy hot dogs than a stomach should hold. A lot of time wandering aimlessly in the park. Enough corned beef to feed a marching band. Heat that will wilt your bones. Car horns and strained necks as you try to see the tops of buildings. New York keys chains bought in bulk. Holding your breath next to the fragrant guy in the subway who really should keep his arms down.

Enjoy it, little kid. It’s an experience you will always want to relive, and one day you’ll have to pay your own way.

It was the chance of a lifetime. If there is such a thing as reincarnation, my next lives as a goat, a chicken feather and a booksalesman in Idaho named “Stan” will never see its equal. For the next 1,300 years, I’m officially out of luck.

But you can’t take this away from me.

Flagler College faculty member Barry Sand and I got the chance to fly out to the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the Theodore Roosevelt, where we spent the night, watched them launch and recover aircraft, and generally tried to take souvenirs of anything that wasn’t tied, welded or bolted down.

A common refrain: “Can you fit this landing gear in your bag?”

They call it the “Big Stick,” as in Teddy’s famous saying about speaking quietly and carry one. The ship fits the motto, bristling with firepower, military technology and pilots who must essentially takeoff and land on a floating shoebox.

We got to see it all: takeoffs from the flight deck, night landings, the giant catapults, the 2,000-pound laser guided bombs. And the bunks.

Sleeping arrangements are not unlike a night in a Maytag refrigerator box, although I think there would be more headroom. I slept on the top of three stacked bunks, so high that I needed a pick ax, oxygen tank and a Sherpa to get up there.

We wandered the guts of this mighty warship, spoke with every sailor whose ear we could turn and ate their food. (It was good.)

Then the next day we were launched off by one of the massive steam-operated catapults, propelling our plane from 0-150 mph in 2 seconds. I don’t know how many Gs we pulled, strapped backwards into that supply plane, but it was enough.

The crew lets you know you’re about to launch by waving their arms in the air and screaming, “Here we go!” Moments later your body lurches forward like you’re being dragged back to earth, concrete weighing down every inch of your body.

I expect that’s what it feels like to be electrocuted — your body locked up and you straining with all your might to move from this debilitating paralysis, until a friend smacks you free with a 2X4.

My face strained as I was pressed harder against my harness, and I worried I might squish out like squeezable cheese.

Then, just like it began, it was over. Barry and I looked at each other, exchanging those glances that scream, “We just shared something amazing together and I think I wet my pants.”

As a little kid, my dad brother and I traveled the country hitting every mothballed carrier, battleship and military bathtub-turned-museum we could find. I always marveled at their sizes, their efficient use of space and how the U.S. Navy had perfected doorways that could snap a shin bone in half.

But those were all retired ships, with quiet hallways that you had to imagine sailors racing through. So to finally see one of these hulking beasts alive, its veins coursing with men and women as the ship steamed to some far off mission, was a dream come true.

I told an admiral who asked me how I was enjoying the trip that: 1) if they converted part of the ship to condos, they could really cash in; and 2) that no matter what part of the political divide you come from, you can’t help but appreciate the incredible, and very difficult, job they’re doing for our country.

And they’re kids, most the age of college freshman, all working on million-dollar jet engines, parking planes, steering ships, dishing out food and missing their families for months at a time.

I don’t go in for mushy, but he said something I can agree with: “If you’re worried about the future of today’s youth, this trip will reassure you.”

It did. I came away feeling very proud, very appreciative. And there was another feeling — that I don’t want my two feet leaving the comfort of dry, sturdy land for a long time.

One day, thanks to millions of dollars in funding and many dedicated scientists with no real cause to champion, the world will finally discover a cure for clutter.

That day can come none to soon for me.

Clutter has a way of swarming me, attracted to some scent that I can neither wash away nor mask. So, hard as I try, it always comes back — and worse than before.

My desk at home? I haven’t seen wood in more than a year. Instead, it’s a collection of newspapers, pay stubs, house plans, bills, service cancellations, and most importantly, the note I wrote to myself about a great column idea I had for this week.

Oh, well. Teacher, it was eaten by my pet Clutter.

What is it about us that we have to, like some kind of modern security blanket, surround ourselves with this scourge? Has there been clutter as far back as man can remember. Or is the difference that once upon a time it was called by its scientific name — “crap” — and quickly discarded.

The typical American, I will bet money, has on average 2,200 cheap plastic pens stuffed into a pen caddie on his or her desk. I will wager again that out of that 2,200, exactly two work. Why do we keep them? What is our fascination? Do we expect one day to extract oil from them? Why can’t we go anywhere without spotting a free pen and thinking, “Oooh, I better take one. I’m running low.”

Running low! You could build a house out of all those pens.

If pen companies had a teaspoon of sense, they would stop filling them with ink and pocket millions in savings from trade shows and conferences alone. If only I had gone into corporate marketing and sales.

At home I have pencils that have sat so long that the erasers are petrified. One pencil says it is made of $7.33 in recycled money. Since I was always told you never throw away money, and you SURE don’t grind it up in a pencil sharpener, it is now doomed to sit in the pen holder until it is one day bequeathed to a grandchild.

My desk at work is no better, and a good deal worse because it’s bigger. People always tell me a messy desk is a sign of a man who is too busy to clean it. I appreciate them saying this, and also that they are lying clean through their teeth. Really they’re thinking, “Jeez, this guy’s a slob. How did he get an office with windows?”

I think of this because I grew so embarrassed of my office recently that I — GASP! — cleaned it. Turns out that it’s not a landfill after all, and actually quite nice. I even discovered I have a computer!

Too long I had apologized for the state of affairs in there. People would come to meetings and I would sound like a stewardess running through a pre-flight emergency checklist before we commenced.

“In the event of total desk collapse,” I would say, “oxygen masks will drop down from the ceiling. Should we be caught up in an avalanche, use a swimming-like motion to keep yourself above the papers and aim for the nearest emergency exit. Now please put on your crash helmet and flotation device so we can begin, and remember to always please speak softly.”

I want to end my dependence on clutter, but sometimes I think it’s as much a part of me as an arm or a leg. It can be comforting like being surrounded by a giant fort. Should someone walk in and ask if I have something filed, I can point anywhere and say, “Yep, it’s under “L” for lost.”

They will turn, walk away and never ask for anything else. In life, you have to take the good with the bad. And as long as there are free pens and credit card bills, there will always be clutter.