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Summers at Chesley Lake

Growing up, my family spent a week at the cottage every summer. It wasn’t our cottage, but we would rent the same cottage in the same place: Chesley Lake, a Mennonite campground near Owen Sound.   And, it wasn’t just my family, about one quarter to one third of the congregation of the Elmira Mennonite church chose to vacation at Chesley Lake every third week of July.  There were familiar faces everywhere, at the small beach, wandering on the trails or playground, and in the pews at the chapel on Sunday. 

At night, smelling of campfire smoke, my fingers sticky with melted marshmallow, and unable to sleep with the stabbing pain of an inevitable sunburn, I would lie in my bed and listen to the adults talking in the kitchen.   “So and so was married to so and so.” “Oh, wasn’t he the one who worked at the Co-op?” “Yes, his brother is the one who lost his leg in that thrasher accident.” It seemed to me like my parents knew everyone in the world and how they were connected. I longed for the day when I could be so connected to so many people.

As the sun sunk, my Dad would pull out his guitar and play gospel tunes and, later, Mama’s Got A Squeeze Box. I melted the soles of many sneakers, resting my feet on rocks for too long, too close to the fire.  On rainy days, we played Rummoli, lugging a can of old pennies from the cupboard at home to the cottage since there were never enough of the plastic chips to divide among the neighbours and relatives who congregated there.  When we were younger, we shared the cottage with another couple and their small children. His name was Roly and we loved to play Rummoli with Roly.

As my brother and I grew up and apart we started to each bring one friend to the cottage with us.  By the time I was a teenager, and a popular one, I had a hard time deciding which “one” friend to bring, so I brought my three besties: Karen, Cindi and Jane. None of them were Mennonites, but I was still able to sit on the edge of my grandmother’s bed and describe to her their parent’s jobs and trace their linage all the way back to their grandparents.  “Aha!” I thought to myself, “I’m finally able to make connections the way my parents did, sitting around the table at the cottage.”

The first Saturday and Sunday of the week at the cottage always meant a crowd.  When we were little, it was aunts, uncles, and friends who would come up to enjoy the beach or a game of golf before heading back Sunday evening.  Now it was our friends who came to Chesley, slept on the floor, or in tents on the lawn or their cars.

It was 1979. We’d all just graduated from high school and it would be our last summer together. We practically ruled the camp that weekend.  Karen and Jane’s boyfriends, Darrell and Mark.  Mark’s cousin.  My brother was so close in age that he and his friend Geoff were part of the gang. There were at least 20 of us.  I have a picture. We’re posing in the play ground, a mob of teenagers monopolizing the monkey bars.  So bright eyed and slim, our whole lives ahead of us.

We were boisterous, giggly and loud. So loud that we drew stern looks from an older woman on the beach.  Jane elbowed me.  I turned and said, oh so loudly, “Don’t worry about her. She’s just jealous of our youthful exuberance!”

It was decades before I returned to Chesley and sat on the beach watching my lovely niece try to swim out as far as the floating dock. Watched as she and my cousin’s daughter lay in their sleeping bags on the living room floor, reading Harry Potter books and falling asleep as the adults sat around the kitchen table talking.  Now it is my brother who goes to Chesley on the third week in July with his children. Grandma comes to spend the day on Sunday.

I’m the older woman on the beach. Loud noises startle me. Teenaged girls annoy me. My face does not hide how I feel about their screeches, giggles and bad grammar. I am, indeed, jealous of their youthful exuberance and I long for that summer weekend when I thought I the world revolved around my friends and me.  
                                                


photo credit: Chesley Lake Camp Facebook 

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