Many of my childhood delights center around our summer cottage. The faint smell of pine trees which were abundant there, and which was stronger after a rainfall, along with a woodsy smell from the ground. The sound of a whippoorwill at night. Nighttime was slightly frightening to a very young me because we were so remote and isolated, but I felt secure in our little cottage, and I knew it was bedtime when the radio – our only connection to civilization – started playing the opening theme to “A Starlight Concert”. The creak of the porch swing, which wasn’t actually on a porch but under one of the big pines. Frolicking in the lake. Picking wild strawberries. Playing on “the mountain”, which was actually a little rocky hill beside our cottage. The amazing aromas coming out of the bakery truck when it came up from the village and flung open its doors – Mom would always buy bread that was so fresh it was still warm, and maybe a sugar pie. My Dad arriving from the city for the weekend, and he’d always bring a present for me and something from the big-city market. For some reason one thing I distinctly remember is a big basket of cherries.
I think my lifelong love of nature was inspired by my summers in that cottage. My parents were very far from wealthy, quite the opposite, but they bought that cottage because they thought it would be good for their sons. They were absolutely right. One other distinct childhood memory I have is how strange it felt at the end of summer to go back to the city. It wasn’t a bad feeling, exactly, just somehow surreal, like traveling to a different planet.
I had pneumonia toward the end of fourth grade: three days in the hospital (my teacher, Mrs Geiman, brought me a bunch of May baskets from the other kids in my class) and then ten or so “recuperating” at home.
I liked watching Steve Allen’s syndicated show weekday mornings whenever I was, uh, “sick” in junior high, but my best performance came in January of my sophomore year in high school. I got really sick walking home from downtown after my girlfriend dumped me on New Year’s Eve, and I missed an entire month of school.
One more thought about my love for our old summer cottage that I had forgotten to mention. Somehow, through circumstances that I absolutely cannot remember, a puppy came into my life one summer at that cottage. My first dog! I’m sure he was just a mutt but he grew up to be a good-looking medium sized dog, as I recall. He was a smart dog and I absolutely loved him, needless to say, but my Dad really liked him, too.
Those of us who had a dog or cat that lasted through a good part of our childhoods are indeed lucky. Fritz was the result of a hookup between the broken tailed mutt my sister adopted when she showed up and our neighbor’s beagle. He was born when I was in fourth grade and lived until I was in my mid twenties. I was thankful to be around when his time came.
That was a big part of my childhood too. Only we called ours the cabin. It was a cabin my grandpa (dad’s dad) built in the early 50s. We had to travel only 45 minutes or so to get there. We spent just about every summer weekend there plus my dad took 2 weeks of his vacation to stay there. We’d start going up as soon as the ice was out on the lake usually sometime in late April and close up the cabin shortly after Labor Day. Once in a while we’d go in the winter and my dad would clear off the ice and we’d skate.
That place really defined my childhood. My sisters and I would beg to go swimming soon after the ice was gone or to at least wade which would usually mean we’d “accidentally” fall or get our clothes wet. We’d fish for sunnies (sunfish) at the end of the dock with the worms we dug up and put in an old coffee can. There was an old wooden row boat that we learned how to row in. My dad would tie the boat up to the dock with a long rope so we could only go so far. After we knew how, we’d row the boat out to a patch of lily pads, throw the anchor over and fish. I could bait my hook and take the fish off. My dad bought a pontoon boat so he could fish and we’d all go with him. We’d bring loads of snacks, a deck of cards and Scrabble. There was an island that we’d tie up to and run around and explore. We’d walk in the woods, lay in the sun and read, make up games, read comic books, and snack all day long. We were never bored.
A mile or so away, down the dirt road, there was an old general store with wooden floors and a wooden screen door. I can still smell that place. We’d beg to go every once in a while and we’d get to take turns driving the car. We’d each get to pick out a candy bar or an ice cream bar.
We’d have a campfire every evening and roast marshmallows then we’d go in and play cards or a few games of Sorry.
My dad loved to cook breakfast at the cabin. So he’d make bacon and eggs every morning. If we kids didn’t want that, we had those mini boxes of cereal instead. To this day, if I’m walking the dogs on a cool spring or summer morning and the aroma of breakfast cooking wafts from a house, I am instantly back at the cabin.
A lot of snow stuff. Sledding (both downhill and bicycle towed), forts, icy puddle stomping, recess and after school playing on the huge piles from the plows clearing the parking lots. By 5th or 6th grade, I had some regular shoveling gigs for COLD cash.
Even as a kid, mullberries were yucky to eat and swarming with stinging insects and bird droppings. I’m surprised so many people remember enjoying them.
the Rexall down the street had a few of those machines where you put in a quarter and got a plastic capsule with a dumb toy inside. i don’t recall how i figured it out but it was broken and would spit out a toy every time you turned the handle, regardless of whether you put any money in there.
i mean, this is basically stealing so i suppose it’s bad form to claim this as a childhood delight but i was a child at the time and i assure you i was very delighted.
My grandma lived in a cottage on a lake, and we’d spend a lot of time up there. We knew it was late when the old floor-standing radio would intone “Who knows what evil lurrrrks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows…”
The beginning of my love for super heroes, old time radio, and the power of a good imagination.