380 Miles

380 Miles
By Laura Ferris

Three hundred and eighty miles. That’s how far it was, the trip my dad made each way every single summer weekend between the time school let out and Labor Day that first year we owned the cabin. He’d try to get away from work on Friday by 4; arriving at the lake around eleven. Usually my oldest sister was with him; she was going to college in the fall and needed to work a summer job to save some money. I don’t recall ever hearing him complain about the trip unless there was a traffic jam or road construction that slowed him down. My mom waited up for him, usually to tell him what trouble my younger sister and I had been during the week. Despite being left each week, she was one of the luckier moms in the lake region. We had two cars so she wasn’t totally abandoned up there. She spent her days gardening, walking and touring the local countryside for interesting shops or markets. This was fine with my younger sister and I; we had plenty to do that didn’t involve her.
Our cabin was on a channel, actually a river, that connected one lake to 9 others. It was a beautiful chain of lakes filled with small resorts, cabins in which other families lived the life we lived and two or three larger resorts. Fishing was the main lure to the region but for the kids who lived there, water skiing was everything.
The weekends were very different than the weekdays. Dad made everything fun. We boated through the lakes, went fishing, water skied, played croquet on the lawn and barbequed. Saturday night was usually a time for Dad and Mom to join their friends at a local bar and sometimes, if there was a good show, they went to one of the larger resorts and caught whatever stage show was being produced. Sunday mornings were for the family. We had big breakfasts on the screened porch and talked about the chores that needed to be done during the week while Dad was gone. Then Dad and Mom would normally play a round of golf and off he’d go, leaving by five in order to be home and get at least some sleep before work again on Monday morning.
At fourteen, the weekday chores of mowing and weeding outside fell mostly to me. With lots of reminders from Mom, I’d usually complete them by Friday. But most days during the week were spent off with my friends; we couldn’t drive cars yet, but we all had boats we could take since none of our moms would operate them. We had a big tank of gas for the boat in the boathouse and no one thought about the cost of oil or the fact that we kids were using so much gas just to play. I look back on those days and wonder why my mother allowed me the freedom I had. It was not uncommon for me to be gone from right after breakfast to dinner time. And then, after dinner, I’d be off again. My friends and I skied 8 hours a day, practicing our tricks and egging each other on to try something even more difficult. We learned how to barefoot ski, how to jump, how to ski doubles; we even skied what we laughingly called ballet. It was really the guys skiing with great bravado while the girls squealed on our shoulders.
My little sister spent her days at the horse stable. In order to get there, she rowed her way across the lake in the morning and then she would cut through the fields to the shore opposite our house. On really warm days she would pack her jeans and boots in a water-proof bag and swim across the river and then dress at the stables. At twelve, she led trail rides, cleaned up the stalls and got to feed the horses. She’d do anything to be just to be able to be with those horses that year. It wasn’t until she was a little older that skiing held a charm for her.