"Remember When" entry 1

Air thick with heat, you can literally feel your skin getting tanner.  Blue skies stretched out over your head farther than your 11 year old eye could see.  Heart beating a little to fast underneath the skin and bone of your pre-adolescent chest.  Anticipation tingling through your entire body, unable to contain it, you run just far enough ahead of the group so if they need to, someone can yell your name and you'll know you've gone to far.  Big oak tress line the path on either side, acorns and pine needles cover the dirt trail until finally, you see it.  Calm, and quiet like 6 a.m.  "The Lake" Any lake really.  Any giant piece of wave-less water waiting to be explored.  Of course you can't forget the cattails that outline the entire base of the shoreline, or that family friend, we all have, whose father had the brilliant idea to invest in a watercraft (aka: boat, jet ski, seadoo, or other large piece of machinery designed to float at outrageously high speeds across water), equipped with all your water skiing, wake boarding, and inner tubing essentials  Of course there is the food situation. Which most often resembles some unruly conglomeration of granola bars, Ritz crackers, Doritos, peanut butter and jelly, maybe a fruit, but almost never a vegetable.  Depending on the age range, religious and/or political beliefs of your group (or lack thereof), there will be cheap beers, and spirits, or lots and lots and lots of juice boxes, Capri suns, or a seemingly endless supply of sodas, and Sunny Delight (which just so you are aware is only 5% juice. . . what the other 95% is, remains a mystery).  If you are fortunate enough, someone will have remembered to bring the music, which is rarely anything you'd listen to on the average day at home, often ranging from 90s alternative rock, to obscure R&B from the 70s. Every once in awhile a Phil Collins or Celine Dion power ballad from the late 80s sneaks its way into the mix and somehow, all the songs will, against your free will as a citizen of earth, become somewhat nostalgic. 

A lake in Alaska on a trip I took with 3 of my favorite humans

The day proceeds in the purest pre-pubescent bliss.  It all feels effortless, and by 4 or 5 pm everyone is ready to call it a day.  7 hours in direct sunlight can squelch even the most youthful thirst for adventure.  My days spent in the summer on a lake, are some of my most beloved memories.  Perhaps your traditions look different, but I think anyone who has spent summer days pulling apart cattails, swallowing to much algae, chasing ducks and angry geese, eating oreos and turkey sandwiches, and throwing rocks and hornet nests, would agree, that nothing says childhood memory like a day on the lake with close friends and family. 

For those of you, who have never had the pleasure of experiencing a day at "the lake", please, its still only mid way through summer, call up some friends, and experience what is considered by many as one of the greatest human past times.