First Post - How Exciting

Wow. This is a little odd, knowing that I'm putting thought and ideas out there for virtually anyone to read! It's a little cool, too. I've never been that good at journaling, but I'm pretty good at writing letters and e-mails. As long as I think I have an audience, I can write. Now I do. The pressure is on!

I took the title of my blog from my grandparents' lake cabin. The times that we spent at Cabin 77 were the best times of my childhood. My brother and I have vowed that as soon as we get a little bit ahead, we'll buy a lake cabin so that our kids can have the opportunity to have the same kinds of experiences that we had. But will they really? Back then - the late 70's - parents were much more willing to let kids run around and just be kids. We would leave the cabin in the morning, check in with them maybe a time or two during the day (mostly for food) and come back around dinner time. They never knew exactly where we were, but they trusted us. And they weren't paranoid about some wacko swooping in and carrying us off. I'm just not sure that if we did have a lake cabin I would be able to let my kids go for long walks unsupervised.

Yesterday was the Fourth of July. That holiday always reminds me of Cabin 77. We spent every July 4th of my youth down at the lake. The tradition was to load up the car, drive to the lake, unload it and immediately jump back in to go get our fireworks. We saved our allowance for weeks for that trip! Of course we had to get the Black Cat firecrackers so that we could blow stuff up. Then there were the bottle rockets - the kind that just went up and popped. I always liked "Clustering Bees" and "Ground Bloom Flowers" as my pretty fireworks. After we spent on the staples then we'd try one or two of the fancy kind. We usually didn't have to spend too much on the fancy stuff because Heath, the boy who lived at the lake, would always get the really good kind. His house was just three doors down from our cabin so we could see the fireworks that he and his family shot off. Everyone in the cabins all around would work together for our own fireworks show. We'd take turns shooting them off so that everyone could enjoy everyone else's. I remember sitting on our screened-in porch, smelling the gunpowder and watching the displays sometimes curled up on my mom's lap and other times just rocking in the rocking chair alone. I don't think my eyes could have gotten any bigger.

Last night my own daughter sat in our kitchen looking out the back door as my husband and I lit "Ground Bloom Flowers" on our back porch. It's not really the same, but she doesn't know any better! Her eyes were wide and beautiful. Maybe someday I can sit with her on the screened-in porch of our own lake cabin.