But it's been rather mild and temperate in terms of weather, no blistering heat or humidity, which is nice. The beginning of summer always makes me want to be a child again. Those camping trips where we slept in tents and told ghost stories around the fire. The long days in the boat where me and my sister spent our time occupied by coloring books and Archie comics and cap guns and decks of cards. When the winds off the water, the smell in the neighborhood immediately snaps me back to our all of those Wisconsin weekends. My mother said recently that when we lived in town, they would be out the door on Friday and gone every weekend til Sunday night, either to my grandmother's RV slip at Lake Wisconsin or up to Black River Falls. There were other places, other camp grounds, many of which I forget the names of. Even later, we did a lot of camping 45 minutes away or so in Rock Cut State Park, both with a camper and without.
All of those trips seemed like the closest to real vacations, to any sort of letting go of real like drudgery. Even my mother, who rarely indulged in leisure time would spend hours reading True Story magazines on a trifold chair. I would hole up in the top bunk of the truck camper with trashy teen novels and a notebook and try to write things. Despite the work of "roughing"it, it was rather peaceful.
