Summer Happiness

Describing my childhood summers to my nieces and nephews.

Summer Happiness

My childhood summers were filled with close family bonds, fun, joy, happiness, and laughter at King’s campground on Lake Manchaug located in Manchaug, MA. The campground had a beach with a nice soft sandy bottom, a boat landing and docks for our boats, a dance pavilion, where we had square dancing on weekend evenings, and arts and crafts during the day, tennis courts, a huge green grass field where we played baseball, football, and Frisbee, and a country store where we would buy all of our daily food supplies and tons of penny candy.

Our trailer was an old school bus that Grampy converted. He built a kitchen with cabinets, sink, stove, refrigerator and a closet. He created a kitchen table that dropped down into a full size bed and the cushions from the benches turned into a mattress for the bed. He designed a sofa that turned into a twin bed and made two bunk beds that were opposite the closet and a back bedroom that had four bunk beds with plenty storage cabinets underneath for all of our supplies for the camping season. Grammy made all the decorative pillows and beautiful curtains that were inside the camper. We also had a screened in room on our campsite, which contained a Coleman stove where we cooked most of our meals, a picnic table with checkered tablecloths, a tall white metal cabinet, and a refrigerator. I have fond memories of our family playing cards by candlelight. It was especially fun when it was raining, because I loved the sound of the rain as it hit the plastic sheeting we had covering the screens. These were awesome family times filled with a lot of good memories. A wonderful closeness was shared with family members that continues until this day and it would be great if we could all get together to spend some quality time together this summer.

LinFer (Linda Fernandes) 2010 ^©

Reviews

[Samuel Dickens]

Memories from our youth are precious, and you've told this one very well. Hopefully, the young ones who listen to its telling will take it to heart. Like me, you spent a lot of your summers outdoors. I'm afraid my youngest son will only have stories of video games to tell his grandchildren.

[Linda Fernandes]

Thank you for the review Sam. I wrote this for my nieces and nephews to let them know of simpler times. I also posted this on FaceBook where I have a lot of my childhood camping friends chat with each other... I was happy to hear back from them, that the memories I wrote about, put them back there and it was a very nostalgic visit for them. Good times, great friends til this day, over 40 years later.

[lee von cleef]

Good to know,document,words they can pass on little roots to help them stand ,bend to the rocks life and pedestal friends will throw at them.

[Linda Fernandes]

Thank you for reviewing my Summer Happiness piece. I appreciate you taking the time.

[Brielle Cartny]

This reminds me of my childhood. This is a very nostalgic. I can't wait to hear about more!