Summertime

Summertime is a sweet reminder of days gone by. I think all of us have memories of summer that make us smile. Summertime memories to me are as sweet if not sweeter than Christmas memories. Perhaps its because it wasn’t about the gifts but about the freedom from life’s pressures.

The last day of school was always anticipated for weeks. Daylight savings time always seemed to be the trigger that made us antsy for the last day of June. Packing the efforts of 10 months hard work into back packs and plastic bags we would skip home with delight.

I have mentioned in a previous blog that my brother and I used to go to summer daycare because mom worked full time. We did many fun things with the daycare including parks, beaches, aquariums and petting zoos. They kept us very busy for the 10 weeks we were there.

Mom also kept us busy on the weekends by taking us to the campground that was our second home. This place was awesome for us and for mom. When we first started us kids slept in a big tent on air mattresses and mom and Shirley, a long-time friend of the family, would sleep in the camperized van. We were young enough that it didn’t matter to us that by morning, we were in a dew soaked tent and the mattresses beneath us no longer had air in them. After we had been going here for a few years mom bought a 26ft-travel trailer with a friend of hers and we traded off weekends with them. It never really mattered to us what we slept in as long as we could get up in the morning have a breakfast of eggs, bacon and those mini cereal boxes mom only bought for camping. Once the breakfast dishes were done and the ice cream pail we did them in had been rinsed out and put away we were off and running. The days and evenings were always filled for us kids with little time to get bored.

Friday night when mom got home from work we would load the cooler into the car and be off. It was about 90min to the campground if there were no border lineups. On long weekends the lineups could stretch from 20 min to 2 hrs. We were always prepared to wait though. Once across the border we would pass the dairy where we bought our milk and cheeses for the weekend. Sunday we would return here on our way home to buy milk and cheese for the week ahead. We would also get a soft serve ice cream cone as a treat for in the car while we waited to cross the border back into Canada.

Driving past the dairy farms there was always the smell of fresh manure and silage. The running joke to this day is that it was my mother’s perfume we could smell. It really wasn’t an unpleasant smell and to this day whenever I drive past the farms near my mom’s I can’t help but think of those summers evening drives.

A few miles beyond the border there was a little church at the corner we turned at. A cedar shingle roof atop white exterior walls surrounded by cedar shrubs and crab grass Inside there were 6 pews and a small altar each with its own hymn book resting neatly in the wooden pockets attached to the pew in front. Sparsely decorated and adorned with only a cross at the front of the building above the altar. A feeling of eerie comfort always came over me each time I was in that building. Almost as if the empty church spoke more than the full church we attended on a semi regular basis. The church was non-denominational and could seat maybe 18 people. It was seldom locked and every time we stopped to show a friend who had come with us they were always amazed that the door wasn’t locked. There was a donation box in the church that always had money in it but no one ever thought to steal it. It was a different way of life back then and we never thought to take money from the church.

I loved the scenery on the drive. Farmhouses with beautiful gardens lined the country roads. The hanging baskets were huge and the porch swings were inviting. Corn grew as tall I have ever seen it and on the last right hand turn on our route there was a huge strawberry field. I would say the field had to be 20 acres in size but I am sure if I went to look at it today with an adult’s eye it would only be maybe 5 acres. We never picked strawberries from the fields even though we were very close to them when we were staying at the campground; local rumour had it that the farmer carried a shotgun and a mean streak. In hindsight, I believe it was our parents telling us tales to make sure we didn’t disturb the crops that earned this farmer his livelihood.

Driving in the entrance we could see a large grassy knoll and the first of two lakes to our right and the main office ahead of us, Mike and I were always eager to go check out which of our summer friends had returned to share in our fun. Mom’s rules said that we had to help unload the car before we were allowed to take off anywhere. We tried to sneak away every single time.

Our location in the campground depended on whom we were camping with while we were there. Sometimes we were near the backfields on the backside of the second lake. This location was my favorite as we were always under the big evergreen trees, which provided a great reprieve from the sun on a hot summer afternoon. This spot also usually afforded us a chance to feed the squirrels that lived in the trees above us. If we were on our own, just the 3 of us, mom liked to be near the main office. It was close to the pool so she didn’t have to go far to fetch us kids for meals and there were fewer mosquitoes to bite her in the evenings. Mom was never big on the campfires once we got the big trailer and if it were just the three of us mom would go to bed early and read after we had gone to sleep.

Like I said after breakfast we were ready to run and play like kids should. Mom always supplied us with a daily allowance of money and if we were really well behaved she might slip us a little extra towards the end of the day. Our morning usually began in the main office. I suppose I should be calling it the clubhouse because for us, that is pretty much what it was. There was a general store with the basics for the campers, the candy and pop for us. In the main room there was an arcade with a pool table, pinball machines and the top video games of the era like Zenon and Pac Man. and a laundry room. Out the backsliding glass door there was a veranda type deck which looked over the lake we saw when we first drove in. the deck led to the right towards the entrance and to the left towards the pool and the full facility washrooms.

I grew up as a water baby so at any given time of day, with the exception of adult swim hours, my mother would always look for me in the pool before looking anywhere else. The pool was only 9ft deep at the deepest end and 3ft at the shallow end. A kidney bean shape it provided me with hours and hours of entertainment. There were a couple of tables with umbrellas around the pool but with so many kids in the pool at one time most parents chose not to be inside the gates for fear of getting soaked. We rarely used the tables for anything other than our dry towels. Our wet towels hung over the chain link fencing and would usually dry before we needed them again. We would be kicked out of the pool twice a day for an hour each time. This was adult swim hour and let me tell you that hour was one of the longest we ever experienced. 1-2 and 6-7, no kids allowed, no exceptions. Mom wouldn’t even let us hang around the gates or fences when she was swimming because this was her quiet time.

If she couldn’t find me in the pool there was always a chance that I was out on the lake in a pedal boat. I can’t remember when they removed it but there used to be a bridge to an island in the middle of the lake. The island was the home of many bullfrogs, which we loved to try and catch with butterfly nets in the evenings after dusk. We were allowed one boat rental each on the weekends and we always took our best pals with us for the ride. The boats were two-seaters but I can remember having up to 6 or 7 kids on them at one time. The lake wasn’t deep but it wasn’t something we wanted to swim in either, duck mites and slimy muck were something our mothers might have buried us for.

We seldom got to take our own bikes because mom had a small car but there was always someone willing to share and after a few years the owners of the campground even provided bikes for us regular campers to use. Riding the campground was always fun as we sped down the hills and around the lakes as fast as our feet would take us. At the very back of the acreage the campground was located on there was even a dirt bike track that we could race and take jumps on. Once my brother and I were a bit older we were allowed to ride into Lynden and take in the shopping. We used to go into Bellingham with mom for school clothes and general shopping that was much cheaper in the USA than it ever was at home but it wasn’t like going into Lynden on our own. We would ride through the streets of this sleepy Dutch heritage town and wish we could live there all year round. I remember the daffodils and tulips that filled virtually every yard in the spring. The shops were quaint and almost eclectic in style. Mike and I certainly never saw these kinds of shops in the cities at home.

The owners of the camp also tried to keep us entertained when the weather was wet which is common in the northwest region. The basement of the club house, now a restaurant, used to be just a large empty room with four walls. We would fill it with sleeping bags and lawn chairs and watch movies on VHS on the rainy afternoons. On Sunday mornings this room was our church. A list of ministers all from different denominations would preach the word of God to us. Every week was a different minister until, like a baseball team, the roster started from the top again. I remember taking a CPR course in that room when I was about 12. Rescue Annie scared the living crap out of me the way she moved when anyone compressed her chest. I did not participate in the hands on instruction and to this day will avoid performing CPR at all costs. This room was often used for large potluck gatherings in the fall months especially for thanksgiving both for the Canadians and the Americans.

There were usually as many, if not more, Canadians than Americans at the campground and this meant the holidays in Canada were always celebrated. Even the 4th of July was celebrated, usually a few days early, on our Canada Day. Everyone would meet near the clubhouse and bring their favorite dish and their own plates and utensils. Put that many people and that much food in one location and you will get true community spirit. Everyone watched over everyone else’s kids. Babies were passed around like good moonshine on a hunting trip. Everyone helped clean up and no one left before everything was done. I don’t ever remember anyone causing a scene. Fireworks were always a part of the July holiday and being a child I was always in awe of the colours and sounds a little gunpowder could produce.

Saturday nights and Sunday’s, if it was a long weekend, we always went to bingo at 7pm. Mom would pay for our bingo cards that were $2.00 a card for the evening and if we won we had to split the money 50/50 with mom. We were also encouraged to share some of our winnings with the other kids that were with us for the weekend. Some weekends there was just my brother and I other weekends there might be as many as 6 of us running around my mom’s feet. I remember winning a few times but more often than not if one of us was going to win it would have been Tina, one of my best friends. That girl was born with four-leaf clovers as part of her DNA. Tina was lucky with everything she touched from bingo to horse racing.

I remember the summer of 1979. I had the opportunity to go to the KOA for 9 days with our neighbours. I called these people my aunt and uncle although they were of no relation. Uncle Peter and Auntie Coral lived two doors down from us and they were my contact in case I had trouble with anything after school. Being latch key kids mom wanted to make sure we had someone close and everyday when I got home from school I would let Auntie know I was home. Mark and Melissa were Uncle and Auntie’s children. We were all very close and the idea of going camping with them was a huge thrill for me.

The 9 days turned into 14 and it was filled with swimming, riding, boating, frog catching and general good times. On that trip there was a thunder and lighting storm the likes of which I haven't seen since. As we all sat outside (silly) beneath the awning (stupid) of the camper parked among the huge evergreen trees (what were we thinking) the lightening flashed all around us. The thunder was so loud that it seemed the storm was right on top of us. I loved sitting in that humid air watching the lightening on the lake while we roasted marshmallows on the campfire.

A hornet stung Melissa on her lip about 4 days into the trip. Her lip swelled up so badly that it was decided she needed to see a Dr as soon as possible in case of allergic reaction. The trip back into Canada and into the hospital was long and tense. The camp owners had phoned ahead to the border to let them know we were on our way and when we arrived we were cleared right through no questions asked. We could have taken her to the local hospital in the states but the cost would have been enormous, as they had no medical insurance for travelling outside Canada. The Dr cleared Melissa, gave her a prescription for an anti-inflammatory and we headed back to camp. The swelling was gone after a few days but it was a story we told for years.

Our curfews on the campground were few but we all knew we had to be back at our own sites by nightfall. There were no lights except near the clubhouse so we would walk by the light of the campfires back to our respective locations. For my family nightfall meant pj’s and marshmallows. Sitting in old metal lawn chairs, woven with uncomfortable nylon strips that pinched your butt or legs if you sat on them wrong, we would roast and burn marshmallows using sticks we had found in the bushes around camp. Mosquitoes were never a concern though we always went home covered in bites. The smoke from the fire was always moving around and legend had it that saying "I hate white rabbits" would make it go away. I never found that to be true.

Once the flames of the fire had turned to embers, exhaustion would quickly settle in. A full day of fresh air left our little bodies in dire need of sleep. Amazingly enough it was usually not much after 10pm when we went to bed. Snuggling into our sleeping bags we would drift off to the sound of the adults that remained around the fire. It was now time for us to dream and for the memories of summer to become forever embedded in our memories.