LEFTOVERS

Well, the Thanksgiving Holiday is over. It's usually my favorite time but this year was a little harder. I took a stupid pain pill in the morning (I don't like to take drugs) and got through just fine until after dinner cleanup when the damn thing wore off. I had to hit the couch with a heating pad and take another stupid pill! The bad thing is the timing. I'm sure that all of us have had one family member who never helps with cleanup. I felt like a real rat.

When I was a kid, my cousin Dinah was the one who always disappeared at dishwashing time. When we were at Uncle Joe's camp, the kids were supposed to wash all the dishes. Of course, instead of just going ahead and doing them, we would spend an hour looking for Dinah first while the dishes hardened and then work twice as hard getting them clean. Dinah grew up to be a wonderful adult and two years ago, I finally asked where she hid. She told me there was a hollow tree that she used to be able to shinny into and we would walk right by her everytime.

The camp was primitive and full of bats but it was on its own island and we had wonderful times there. We caught a lot of fish which we required to eat and we played a lot of poker with matchsticks. There was no running water and no electricity but we thought it was heaven. I wonder what today's kids would think of an outhouse? Our bathtub was the lake. We drank warm Kool-Aid and hot cocoa with evaporated milk and thought it was great.

It was originally a hunting camp on a hill until a damn was built. Otherwise, my relatives could have never afforded an island.

The biggest secret us kids never told our parents was the time we found Uncle Joe's nudist magazine. I guess that was the porno of the times. We memorized the photos of people playing tennis, mowing the lawns and sitting on front porches in the nude. Especially disgusting was a really fat old woman out sunning on her porch. I can still see it in my mind! Ugh!

Anyway, camp remains one of my favorite childhood memories.