Because humor is funnier when you know it's true.
Not quite the Griswolds (continued)
At night the families would get together and have a bonfire. I kissed a boy for the first time at one of those bonfires. To this day, the smell of “Off” makes me pleasantly weak in the knees.
They had activities for all ages from frog races to water skiing. One night the kids went on a hayrack ride through the woods on a snipe hunt. Before we left, I couldn’t figure out why my parents hee-hawed all through dinner, elbowing each other.
We innocently carried paper bags to catch our snipe, and listened to an old Indian legend about a boy named Cable, which ended when the speaker dramatically shined his flashlight down on an electrical box and announced in a booming voice, “And this is where they buried Cable.” The snipe hunt in the dark netted tiny baby ducklings. For some reason, my parents were shocked that we caught anything.
In the dewy early morning, cabin doors creaked open and shut. Boat motors started up, people conversed quietly, and the smell of fresh coffee and bacon wafted through the open windows. Bliss.
We were in the boat by 7:00 a.m. Mom would pack some snacks and a thermos of coffee and an empty coffee can for…you know. At 10:00 a.m., we’d motor back and make a big breakfast, then go back out and fish until dinnertime. Sometimes dinner was fresh fish from the lake we caught earlier in the day. I got a crash course in how to filet fish one night when we caught an astounding 93 crappie in one evening. My father and I spent three hours in the fish house, cleaning them.
During the vacation, my mother wore a “waterproof bandage” which later we found out was simply a condom. Points to mom for creativity!
I never forgot those vacations, and when my kids were old enough, we began taking them to Wisconsin to a friends’ cabin on the lake. For one week we swam, fished, ate, sunned, and had a blast.
My husband Joe and I watched the kids make their own memories while we were on those journeys, like the annual trip to Tremblay’s Fudge Shop in the tourist trap that is Eagle River, the outrageous prices at the Pik and Sav, and the endless cans of Mountain Dew I never buy at home.
They experienced the mosquitoes, the fishing, the bonfires, the sunburns, the 386 games of checkers and watching Forest Gump, the Goonies, or the Great Outdoors until they knew every word by heart.
We all played board games with enthusiasm. We bravely got into the water to swim and splash around with them despite the water temperature being approximately four degrees above freezing. We had blue lips after swimming.
Then, it’s inside for a snack and perhaps they nap, but not for too long…I don’t want them missing any of the pretty scenery.
Ah, good times.
-Christine Cacciatore
This piece previously appeared on Love, Lust and Laptops. Christine Cacciatore is a multi-published author who lives—and loves—to write. Together with her sister, Jennifer Starkman, she has published the magical novels Baylyn, Bewitched and Cat, Charmed, with the third book Elise, Evermore coming out soon. On her own, she has written Noah Cane’s Candy, a sassy holiday short romance and Knew You’d Come, a spicy paranormal romance novella. Also, Chris ventured into the Kindle Worlds Mary O’Reilly paranormal series and has written Trouble Lake and Grave Injury. They’re the perfect books to curl up with any time of year but especially Halloween…because they’re chock full of ghosts!