Passing the Torch

 The great one week countdown has begun. In exactly one week from this very moment Pam and I will be AIS, leaving Short Pump in our rear view mirror, heading for the big green bridge. In a first, this time we will be accompanied by my son and his wife who will also be driving up to Maine. It’s a long story but they will be driving their cool new EV car with their pup Frisco onboard. We will probably leave at roughly the same time but since their stops will take longer and be more frequent than ours we won’t be convoying or anything. However, it will be so cool to have them with us that first week at the lake.

A few days after we arrive, my daughter, son-in-law and grandson will touch down at the Portland Airport and for six wonderful days the house will be full of all seven of us for the very fist time. We will be introducing Silas, along with Frisco, to lake living in Maine. 

This will be a summer in Maine like nothing before it in our experience. We haven’t spent any time in Maine with a toddler in—I don’t know—since our kids were toddlers over three decades ago. This fact is almost impossible to believe. It can’t have been that long ago, could it? Nevertheless Pam and I both understand that this year will feel different. Hosting an energetic Golden Retriever with no lake life experience can be challenging. Having a 13 month old child there will change the dynamic in a thousand ways. There won’t be as many lazy moments, we won’t be able to succumb to whatever spontaneous impulse pops into our heads. If we are feeling an ice cream run over to Super Scoops we can’t just hop in the car and go. We will have to work around nap schedules…and this time not just mine.

But I’m not sure I’ve ever looked forward to Maine more than I have this particular adventure precisely because it will be so completely new. Having the opportunity to watch Frisco’s first time reaction to the lake will remind me of Lucy. Getting to watch Silas’ first moment in the water, his first lunch on the dock. His first walk on the footbridge at Riverducks will take me back to when I watched my two kids eating fluffernutters on the sandy beach at Dummer’s Beach all those years ago. For us it will feel like passing a torch of sorts, a torch of shared memories and experiences that have defined our family for the past forty two years…a very good thing.