A Mother’s Musing : Summer ends with a splash of cold water
Posted on Wednesday, September 24, 2008
We grilled the last burgers of the season on our pontoon boat last weekend. Some years we use the boat well into October, but I don't think this will be one of those years. It's already been a couple of weeks since I've been swimming. Summer is always too short, but this year it feels even shorter.
But our last dinner cruise was a good one. With my nephew visiting from the West Coast, it was the perfect excuse for a family dinner on the boat with attendance required from all three mostly grown children.
There was only one teenager on the boat that Sunday night, but you would never had known that listening to us. We found a quiet cove and threw over the anchor. Within seconds the water fight began.
The 16-year-old found her old water gun under one of the seats and started firing. Her cousin announced that the water is really much colder at his home in Washington state and dived in. So the local young people were honor bound to follow his example. Except for the oldest daughter who wasn't wearing her bathing suit. I barely managed to stop her brother and her cousin from throwing her in. Instead they had to take turns throwing the 16-year-old overboard.
It was mass chaos, just like when they really were kids.
Some families have more traditional ways of showing affection, but my kids do it by beating up on each other. Or at least, I think it's a way of showing affection.
The water-tight compartment on the steering console was filled with cell phones, while the water fight raged. There were six people on the boat, so naturally there were six cell phones. I wondered as I put mine away why I had bothered bringing it. Almost everyone on my recent call list was on the boat with me.
The kids don't come out with us very often. The two older ones are more likely to borrow the boat and fill it with their friends, and the teenager spent her summer working at the pool and didn't want to have anything to do with the water on her days off. When we bought the first pontoon boat, we thought it was for the kids, but it's turned out to be a toy for the parents instead. We've eaten hundreds of meals on Beaver Lake over the past few years.
For the last time this year, we had the traditional summer meal, complete with chips and store-bought potato salad. We probably won't have brautwurst or corn on the cob again until next summer. I don't plan to buy chips again for a long time. No more pasta salad or layered dips, either. Now we'll switch to healthy soups and low-fat salad dressing and try to lose the weight we gained during the summer. No wonder I like summer so much !
We may take the boat out a few more times. It's always nice to see the fall colors reflected in the lake, but by then everyone will be bundled up in sweatshirts. The boat becomes much smaller when you can't get off it to swim, so the trips become much shorter. We may go out once in January to look for eagles in the more-secluded coves, but we talk about watching eagles a lot more than we actually do it. It's just a little too cold.
So even while I watched the water fight raging between my young adults, I was nostalgic for every summer we've spent on Beaver Lake. Winters are always a little too long.
Reporter Lynn Atkins can be contacted by e-mail at lynna @ nwanews. com.
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