It's an enchanted place, the lake.
No matter how you happen to be connected to the family, you're welcomed and loved.
And pulled. Pulled behind the boat, over and over again.
And cheered.
So that you feel like the star of the show.
And if you're a little boy, you're quite sure that all the gatorade, chips, and salt water taffy back at the cabin are there just for you to graze upon, whenever the fancy strikes.
You Your mother just never knew it would strike you so often.
All this makes you (and your brothers) want to try new things. Never mind that you've only water skied once before, and that was last year.
That was last year.
Right.
Time for wake-boarding (with equipment that is way too big, no less)!
It's all about this year, baby!
And for one boy, that meant one ski. Two feet in one ski.
If you're that boy, all you have to do is say the word, and the pros will show you how: Start out on two, with an experienced skier by your side, and as you kick one foot out of your second ski, her hand will hold you up thorough the wobbles of adjusting to one.
When you're steady, she lets go.
And there you are! You're doing it!! Just like your father before you, and his father before him!
This year!
As the sun begins to set, purple, orange, and fuchsia spray across the evening sky, and, somehow, no one seems to want to leave this place.
Towel-wrapped and happy, they stand in chatty clusters
Looking at the sky, the water, the black layered mountains,
With the grandparents ever-watching from their hill-top perch.
This year!
