Sold! Childhood Summers

When I was a teen, my family owned a trailer home parked in a court at Popp’s Resort near Crivitz, WI. This isn’t the trailer park you are thinking, with groups of trailers separated by wooden decks and awnings. Oh wait, it is what you are thinking, but this trailer park backs up to the north woods. There is a boat dock at the end of the road and boat trailers parked in front of every other trailer. Fire pits are works of art and there are friendly neighbors on those wooden decks.

This is where I spent every summer from age 10 to 18. This is where I learned to water ski. This is where I tried my first cigarette. This is where I kissed a boy for the first time, and where I learned things change from one summer to the next. One year S P is my friend. The next summer, he is a sexy guy with a condom in his pocket hoping his stories about bears in the woods will make me scared enough to run into his arms. :o

As if a bear is more threatening than a teenage boy with a condom.

Life was pretty isolated at the trailer. 

Cell phones didn’t exist yet. The only phone was at the park office. The owner had to find us if there was an emergency. There was only one channel on tv, and all it showed was NASCAR racing, anchoring my dad to the living room most of the time. I had wooded trails, water and a smattering of friends to keep me busy. I gathered wild blueberries, learned to swim by avoiding drowning, discovered poison ivy and once saw a cougar from “the rock.”

My last stay at the trailer was days after my dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer. We sat around the fire for one last time, talking about life, and endings. He died two weeks later.

This weekend was another ending. Mom sold the trailer. She held onto it for a long time, but the upkeep was too much for her. It seems none of the kids took a strong liking to the trailer in the woods, although at least one of my brothers really likes NASCAR. I prefer my vacations in the city, far away from wood ticks, leeches….and bears;).

I took one more trip north to say goodbye to the trailer, and to the summers of my youth, to clean out the trailer. I came home with a van full of 1980 circa radio alarm clocks and fans of every shape and size, and a head full of memories.