2.10.16 Causing such a ruckus

     Growing up, we had a house in New Hampshire, for skiing and hanging out in the summer. The adults had all their best buddies, two other families from our town, who owned an old tiny ski place at the top of a small nearby mountain, and so many families would pack huge reams of kids in their cars, and drive up late on Fridays, get the kids to bed somewhere, and then go wild with martinis and fun and games.

     In the summers, sometimes we were up there for weeks, invading the quiet staid town with our itchy, oblivious entitled presence. And somehow, right next door to our house was Margie's Lunch.

     Margie was probably my age now, in her early 60's, wore house dresses, took no crap, and turned her sunporch into a small cafe. She had grey curly hair, a very sweet husband who limped and farmed, and a beautiful Collie.

     The six, and then seven of us kids, plus visiting friends, would stream into her place, saying hi, laughing and telling stories, and order endless grilled cheese sandwiches and soda and buy up all her candy and ice creams and junk. I bet you she made big orders when she saw us coming. Chicklets, anyone?

     We'd pick the bureaus and wallets of our parents, who couldn't care less, waiting til their martini time each afternoon, and then the gin and scotch time come night.

     There was the small Loon Lake nearby, where the parents would party and snowmobile or skinny dip. Or they'd go tobogganing in the darkness up on the tiny mountain, crashing down into the black night, bashing into trees, climbing back on up and doing it again. Their screams and laughter would float into the enormous, tall ceilinged camp building, while we kids slept in a huge room full of bunk beds. Eventually one adult would leave the partying, and come sleep in the camp with us, snoring away in a bunk bed, then stoking the fireplace all night, to keep the pipes from freezing.

     Summer nights were wonderful, the busy parents never noticing if we were actually asleep, or just faking it, til they stopped paying attention, or drove off to another party.

So we kids would make sure the littler ones were settled, then race about the town, daring each other into the cemetery, shooting peas in a clatter all over the metal roofs, breaking into the Mason's to look around, balancing on the edge of the dam and daring each other to run across the slippery rock wall, in the dark night. Causing such a ruckus.

     Sometimes all the adults would invite more friends from our home town to come, and then they'd stick all the piles of kids out in the magnificent old barn, in the hay, in our sleeping bags. You'd get up there by ladder, the whole front of the upstairs was open, and you'd pee all together, on a three seater, while peering down into the bottom, going "Ewwww!" and being all afraid of going in the night.

     At home, we lived in a tiny town far in the woods, with no neighbors, and used to our parents taking off. So being left to our own devices in a house by a stream and in the middle of a town, next to a tiny restaurant? Heaven.