I grew up in a tiny town, where my Dad owned a hardware store and Mom cooked and cleaned and also worked at the store once we started going to school. Summers were spent running around the neighborhood until it got too dark to see, and sometimes we even would lay on the grass late at night to look at the stars. When we got older, we started going to The Lake. No matter which late folks around town went to, it was still called "the lake", sometimes "the lakes", as in "are you going to the lake this weekend?".
Swimming off the dock, fishing with our Dad, digging our bare feet into the muck at the bottom of the lake...all part of the experience. Catching minnows with a net, collecting turtles, and yes, dealing with mosquitoes after dark were part of my childhood.
My neighbors here in Minnesota had their son, daughter-in-law and two grandkids visit from Texas this week. When the kids were encouraged to take their shoes off to run through the grass, they declined, saying that they were afraid of fire ants (we don't have fire ants here, just the regular old picnic ants). They didn't want to go into the lake for fear that they'd run into a fish. Their parents wouldn't go in either - too mucky and "dirty" for them (the lake is very clean).
My neighbors told me these things with a sad, disappointed look on their face. You see, they grew up like I did here in North Dakota/Minnesota. But their jobs took them to the big city, and later to Texas before their son got to experience what we did. And now they might as well be from a different planet, wondering how on earth we all survived growing up the way we did.
My 4 year old grand niece is getting the lake experience - she loves the water; even dives off the high part of the pontoon into the lake already. Her shoes are rarely on (except for a couple of months when her Mom couldn't convince her to remove her snow boots), and she stays up late by the campfire, shooting off sparklers and roasting marshmallows. She's a lucky girl indeed.
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