• Generations of Memories

    8/25/20087:24:37 AM Link 0 comments | Add comment

    An era has come to an end. I’m talking about my childhood summers in the 50’s and 60’s. Our family vacation involved loading the car and heading north.

    100 miles north of Green Bay, Wisconsin into a forested wonderland . . . . . . . a mile deep into the woods . . . . . near the border of Michigan . . . . . . . outside of a little town called Florence . . . . . . where we had a cabin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a cabin built one board at time . . . . . . . by my grandfather. That’s where I spent my summers. From the time I was born until I married Linda.
     
    This week, the cabin was torn down. Being a mile deep in the woods and empty for all but a dozen weeks or so each year takes a toll on the structure. This was a great cabin with a nice 50 + year run. Finally the squirrels and bears made it theirs. The memories of a child run deep are many. A two room cabin . . . . . . (a third room was added later) . . . . . . no electricity . . . . . . . no indoor plumbing . . . . . . . . a wood burning stove for heating and cooking . . . . . a pond a ¼ mile down the path for bathing . . . . an outhouse 50 yards out back . . . . . . and a hole in the ground for keeping things cold . . . . . well, as cold as can be expected. This was our vacation and we loved every minute of it. At night the cabin was exciting and scary . . . . . dark and darker . . . . quiet and loud. As a child a mile deep in the forest with a single Coleman lantern for light, your mind begins to wander. The night sounds are amplified . . . . the darkness out the window is like looking into black . . . . . yet the sky was so clear that you could see thousands of bright stars . . . . . . . . . . as well as watch the path of astronauts and satellites. The night quiet also allowed us to hear dad’s car coming up the rutted road from a mile away. This gave us kids about 5 minutes to jump into bed and pretend to be asleep. I’m certain that mom and dad never knew that we broke some of the rules. How could they.
     
    Now, two things remain, which I’m sure will have a place in the new cabin. The wood burning stove . . . . . . . . my grandmother and mother made it look easy . . . . . . full dinners . . . . . . cakes or pies . . . . . . they could prepare meals fired by wood that most people of today couldn’t make in a modern kitchen. And secondly, the kitchen table . . . . . a sturdy piece of furniture which lasted through countless games of spoons. If you know the game of spoons . . . . . . then, you need no further explanation. If you don’t know the game . . . . . . . . . . the DeMark kids offer you a challenge.
     
    I have only been back a few times since moving to Georgia, but the memories make it seem as if it were yesterday. Now it’s time for a new generation of kids to remember the cabin their grandfather built . . . . . well, arranged to have built . . . . . . complete with electricity and indoor plumbing . . . . . . but; none the less, just as memorable and still a mile deep in the woods.
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