Memorial Day weekend at camp is usually cold: it’s still spring in this part of the world. But this year, the weather was hot and sunny, warm enough for swimming. “It feels like summer,” I kept saying, and my father, who has come to the river since he was a boy, kept saying, “Yeah, it’s not quite right. It shouldn’t be this warm.”
Saturday’s canoeing expedition took us out to a little island where we could take a swim. My father and Shaggy Hair Boy shared one canoe: they are 60 years apart, but they get together every week to play music together and I could hear them chatting at the canoe whished past us. My daughter, With-a-Why, and my mother were in another canoe, and they sang most of the way. “Here’s another one you might know,” I heard With-a-Why say to his grandmother, and then he launched into the song Ain’t Misbehavin.” She joined him on the chorus.
At the island, which was little more than a rock jutting up at the edge of the bay, we pulled up the canoes and all got out to take a swim. The sun-warmed rock makes a nice place to take a nap. My husband grabbed a life jacket to use as a pillow, while I rested my head on the dry bag that I’d brought my camera in. I could hear Shaggy Hair Boy splashing in the water as I closed my eyes.
That's Shaggy Hair Boy on the right, and With-a-Why on the left.
