Those golden summer days

How is it I have two children who do not enjoy the lake?

We went to Lake Springs yesterday. It was Tuesday. No one was there. This made me happy. The kids...not so much.

About an hour into it they started in with "I want to go home." I was like, "Really? You've been home all summer!"

They wanted the computer. Television. Phone.

"I loved going to the lake when I was your age. And it was usually just me, Aunt Rhonda, Papaw and Grandma Jo!" I told them.

"We're bored," they said. Perhaps this is a failure of mine as a parent.

We had the best times at the lake when I was a kid, let me tell you. It was our second home. You could go anywhere if you could find a spot, and Daddy was good at finding them. I can picture those places in my head, but I couldn't tell you where they are now for the life of me. Now you can't go anywhere if it isn't in a park, where you have to pay for a day use pass.

Daddy had an S-10 pickup with a camper shell on the back. He cut a piece of foam rubber to fit the bed of the truck, and that was our camper. The two adults and one of us children could sleep back there. The other child slept on the front seat. We were small enough that it worked.

The lake was so pretty in the mornings. We woke up earlier than we ever could in town. The air was cool, the water was still, the birds would sing. And we'd have to go find a tree somewhere. Because you know, park fees pay for facilities, and the freedom to move around the lake freely came without toilets. Name the one thing I hate about camping!

Daddy would rekindle the campfire from the night before, and brew coffee using an old tin percolator coffeepot and water from the lake. All of the silt sunk to the bottom of the lake overnight, leaving clean water on the top, he explained. We never really were convinced. Luckily I still believed coffee would stunt my growth.

Hours upon hours were spent floating on the lake, drinking Cokes and eating Pecan Sandies. JoEtta would try to get more freckles, she said. Rhonda and I splashed, swam and shrieked when fish bit our legs. Daddy's back was our diving board. We did fantastic somersaults using his hands as a springboard. Sometimes he just threw us, and that worked really well, too.

If we weren't swimming, we were fishing. I learned to bait my own hook. I learned that fishes respond to "Here, fishy, fishy, fishy!" and will promptly swallow my hook. To this day though, I need a strapping savior to take that fish off my hook. I've been finned enough! 

If we weren't swimming or fishing, we were walking through the woods. We had the best times hiking little known trails, although we probably complained that we'd rather be swimming. We'd see neat rock formations, foundations from old houses, all kinds of things. There were some scary moments, too. Snakes also like to hike little known trails. And then they raise their little heads and pretend to be sticks that your sister and dad breeze right past. Or run across little girls' paths trying to get to the water, causing little girls to scream and dance and yell "Daddy! Snake! Heeellllp!"

I always had a book, too, so if we weren't doing any of that, I was on the beach happily lost in a fantasy world.

*Sigh.* I asked Catie what on earth she thought she would do all day if I took her camping. Did she say "Please don't take me camping?" Is that what she said? I think it sounded something like that.

Perhaps it's time I teach my children to enjoy being alone and quiet for a minute.