This is the second edition of a series of entries that will be about my childhood. Hope you enjoy!
For several summers when I was little, every summer we would go to Lake Ontario. This was probably from when I was 2-3 until I was 9-10. Every summer, my parents would pack up our things and drive either straight to Lake Ontario from our house in Millington or stop in Syracuse to drive up with my Aunt Martie, Uncle Herbie, their kids, and their dog Scruffy. The drive up was always horrible to me.
It was 5 or 6 hours in the back of my mother’s White Ford Windstar. I road along with my game-boy in hand while my little sister sat quietly. She usually napped the whole way there somehow. I was never as good a sleeper as Anna, and never will be my guess. Along the way, my dad pointed out bails of hay claiming,”Those cows never get a square meal!” (the bails of hay were round). We would always stop at the same mall in Pennsylvania along the way. If I was good, my parents would by me a small boy from the toy store there to keep me quiet the rest of the ride.
When we were finally close, we passed a farm on the left side of the road. At the farm, there was a bathtub, a man with a fishing pole, and a toilet. The line from the fishing pole was in the toilet and the man had a speech bubble that said,”fishing for brown trout.” After that, we passed the gas station with “Cleo’s” , the ice cream place that had been there since my dad was a little boy. We called it that, despite the fact that the name of the store had changed many years before. To this day, I don’t know what the place is called (well, was called, it burned down in 2003 I think).
Once we finally got to my Aunt Martie’s house, things were awesome. My little sister would wake up and my parents would unpack the van while we sat on the swinging bench outside Aunt Martie’s house. Outside her house was a bucket filled with water to ensure we didn’t track sand into the house and a shower for if we got extra sandy and needed a quick shower before coming in.
Aunt Martie’s house wasn’t very large, but that didn’t matter, especially since it was a lake house. In the door to the left was a table. During most meals while I was there, the floor was lined with garbage bags to make sure we didn’t get food all over the place. To the write of the door was the kitchen. If you walked straight, there were multiple leather couches positioned around a large tv. Left of there was a small living room area. An antique typewriter sat in the corner. In the middle of the room was a cabinet filled with any board game you could imagine. I can remember on multiple occasions playing Monopoly (and never finishing, because nobody ever does) as well as setting up huge string of dominoes to knock down. Back towards the kitchen was a hallway. Down the hallway on the left was the only bathroom. There were three bedrooms, two of which were filled with bunk beds.
Outside Aunt Martie’s house was a small deck with a grill and a table. I can remember lots of nights with hot-dogs, hamburgers, and corn out on that deck. Off the deck was another small swing bench and a small plaque in honor of their old dod, a poodle named TJ who I can’t remember. Further beyond deck was the beach and lake. During my summers there, I spent hours playing in the sand, building sand castles, playing in the water, swimming, walking to sand bars with my dad, and on one occasion attempting to ride on a broken paddle boat with my grandmother (I insisted on using it despite that fact it was broken which turned out to be an epic fail). Sometimes during the day, if I splashed to much in the lake, Scruffy would think I was in trouble and suddenly run out into the lake only to realize that I was fine after barking a little bit. After that, he would always return to chasing after birds, biting my Tonka dump truck (Scruffy bite-ed my truck) or chewing up my mother’s bras.
It seems so long ago, but I remember every moment of it. I miss the days of playing on the beach, swimming in the lake, even when it was cold, watching fireworks on the beach on July 4th, going to see the Watertown Indians play (they relocated and are now the Staten Island Yankees), playing with my cousins, wind up planes from TJ Maxx, and so many more memories. Oh how those were the days.