A few times each summer my parents would pack up the car and we would all go up to a small hunting cabin outside of Cook Forest State Park in northwest Pennsylvania. For a kid who enjoyed the bit of woods back at home, going to camp was like nirvana every time. It was there I first saw deer in a natural setting and other wild animals as well. No indoor plumbing meant an outhouse and a well that we had to get water from a quarter of an acre away, but it was great! No phones, no televsion, no traffic as we were about 2 miles off of the road and just about absolute quiet. As I grew, that was where I first learned how to shoot both a pistol and later a rifle during the few hunting seasonns that I went up for. Whenever I was up there, its so easy to be able to rest and unwind totally. Pressures of day to day life just melt away. From our little campsite over to Cook Forest itself was about a 20 minute drive. Thats where all of the activities that kids are interested in. In other words, where the money is spent. Pony rides and swimming at the pool in the forest became summer rituals. As we grew, the pony rides gave way to canoe trips down the river and then water slides when they were put in years later. Now that I have kids of my own, its fun to take them and see them discover a lot of the things that I did years ago. Its a real generational lift to see how some of the same things that I enjoyed so much in my youth, my son enjoys now. I still try to get up there as often as I can during the summers, but now work schedules between myself and my wife dont allow as much time for it as we both would like. I was really happy when my good friend Jim, bought and reopened a drive-in theater on the other side of the forest a few years back. Now we always make a side trip over to see him when we get up there. I also try to have a reunion picnic for all of our friends at his drive-in one Saturday during the summer. My ulterior motive behind seeing old friends is to hopefully get other families to see and realize how wonderful just undisturbed nature can be and give them a chance to get away from it all. Thats still my ideal place to go for some privacy even though as the years go by, its getting to be in quite a bit of need of repairs. Hopefully within the next few years my brothers and I can manage to help get it back into decent shape for my dad.
Growing up my parents never had a pool, so if we wanted to go swimming at home, we drove out the street to Blue Dell Public Swimming Pool. Blue Dell was a very large public pool that was roughly the size of a football field. On hot or humid summer days it was usually jammed with people just trying to avoid some of the heat and stay cool. It was there that I first started to learn how to swim. Granted, at that time swimming to me was staying alive while in the water. But I at least learned enough not to drown and be able to propel myself along. Now many years later, the pool has been closed and the land sold. To see the area today, its just one large grassy field in front of some business. In its prime though, it was a place where people from the general geogrpahical area could get together and enjoy the day while getting to know a little bit about each other as well. Today, there arent many of those public areas where people can meet and become acquainted with their neighbors. I find that even where I live now. I know my neighbors by sight and first name, but working as I do its difficult to really get to know people and to look out for them. To date, I've been pretty fortunate with the neighbors that I have had. Each of them have pleasant and more then willing to lend a hand without needing to be asked. Thats something that seems to be getting lost at times anymore with the world. Anyway, back to the pool and swimming. Shortly after I left home my parents got a pool and installed it in the back yard. I still cant help thinking that the timing of me leaving, everyone else getting a swimming pool was a bit too convenient not to be related somehow.
Much of the rest of my summers growing up were spent playing softball with the other guys that lived around me, or bicycling out and around town as much as I could. We would gather up whatever scrap wood or building materials we could find and would build ramshackle cabins in the woods behind my parent's home that would be our escape even though it was often times within seeing distance of the house. We very seldom went away on true 'vacations' and to be honest with you, I dont think that I missed out on anything. We did go on vacation to Niagara Falls in the mid 70's which I really did enjoy. Other then that trip, I was more then content to spend any time during the summer just exploring what the world had to offer in my own back yard or up in Cook Forest as well.
I guess that I had a rather typical childhood in many respects, but I emerged relatively unscathed. Thankfully I didnt have much of the peer pressure problems that so many of the kids today seem to have. My parents were smart enough to let us discover things for ourselves, even through they were never far away watching over us. So much of things that I saw and experienced over those summers helped to shape me in how I view the world and others.
Oh, and I almost forgot my favorite part of the summer, getting to go to