A young Amarillo businessman — a friend of mine — griped recently that the Obama family would be jetting off to Hawaii for a little Christmas R&R.

It’s a tradition the president and first lady have followed since they moved into the White House in January 2009.

My friend seems to think that since the president is the lamest of ducks — with less than a month to go before he leaves office — he doesn’t need a vacation.

Actually, he does.

This brings up a point I want to make about presidential vacations … which is that they don’t really take vacations the way I — or my young friend, for that matter — understand the meaning of the word.

Presidents are never off the clock. They are accompanied by that military officer who’s carrying “The Football,” aka the briefcase containing the nuclear codes; the president gets his daily national security briefing; he is on-call 24/7.

I wrote about the Obamas’ vacation in a blog post two years ago:

https://highplainsblogger.com/2014/12/vacation-for-first-family-potus-will-need-the-rest/

I don’t begrudge presidents from taking time away from the office.

You may choose to believe or disbelieve my next point, but I’ll make it nonetheless. I won’t begrudge the next president and his family from taking time away.

Donald Trump will need some time away — presuming, of course that he works as hard at being president as his predecessors have done. Despite what my friend asserted the other day, Obama has worked his tail off, as did Presidents Bush 43, Clinton, Bush 41, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower, Truman, Roosevelt … I’ll stop there.

They all faced crises and conflict. They need time to chill, to collect their thoughts, to spend time with their spouses and kids.

They are not out of touch or out of reach.

So, with that I say to the current president and his beautiful family: Surf’s up, enjoy yourselves … but keep the phone nearby. We might need you, Mr. President, in a pinch.