This is an ode to a Finger Lakes cottage.
I have been blessed to enjoy two while growing up, both on the eastern branch of Keuka Lake. A recent work assignment sent me driving down East Bluff Drive — and memory lane. Once my interview was over I drove further south down the road in search of our family’s first cottage.
Just like the childhood sledding hill that is a mountain to a child’s eyes but barely an incline to an adult’s, the cottage seemed so much smaller.
My parents bought this little cottage in the late 1970s, when my youngest sister was a toddler. Although my family has a healthy dose of wanderlust and likes to travel, my parents were unsure if that would be possible given their youngest was born with Down syndrome.
They went in with another couple on the property — side-by-side cottages across the street from the lake, with a path down to the water. Their children were the same age as us so we had ready-made playmates.
The cottage was small — a great room with a kitchen, living area and Franklin stove where many evenings we would sit in front of it eating homemade caramel popcorn. Just two bedrooms. The front porch had a picnic table and it was there we ate, played, relaxed and chased bats out of rafters.
Years later, as both we and my parents’ bank account grew, they bought a bigger lakeside cottage closer to the bluff.
But it is this small cottage where indelible memories were made, memories that overwhelmed me with emotion after I snapped a photo and started the drive back home. They were tears of joy, mostly, but wistful and bittersweet at the same time. I think of the memories my children will have when they are my age, and only hope they will feel as I do. But, I am not so sure.
Sure, they have parents who love them, but we grew up in a time when my mother could take us to the lake and set us free.
We scampered up creekbeds, picking black raspberries and sweet peas as we climbed. We had day- — or maybe weeklong — marathon games of backgammon on the shale beach. We caught fireflies and put them in jars next to our beds. We dug for worms with flashlights and sold them as bait.
Read more: FROM SHORE TO SHORE: Cottage memories - Finger Lakes Times: Opinion
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