BACASHUN!

Next week, it will be very quiet around these parts. The family is gathering at an undisclosed location to once again bond over a week's worth of boating, floating, food, fun, and games. And also naps. Naps are a big part of Lake Week.

We've been doing Lake Week so long it should come with extra 'e's at the end of each word, like so: Lake Weeke. Thirty years' worth of tradition, don'tchaknow, comes with extra vowels; always has, always will. (Though why by now we're not tacking an 'e' on to Thankgivinge is beyond me....or maybe we sliced that sucker off to give to all the Ice Cream Shoppes that have since sprung up? I simply don't know).

Speaking of, there was a GREAT Ice Cream Shoppe in the small town I lived in in Bohonk (not its real name) Connecticut. Ice cream AND candy AND toys, a kids' paradise. When I moved to Ye Olde Wake Foreste a few years ago, there was a quaint Ice Cream Parlor and Lunch Place on the corner of North Main and North Street (I know, it's confusing) where, if you asked nicely, the elderly ladies behind the counter would tell all sorts of stories about the town in its heyday of actually BEING the home of Wake Forest College. Sadly, that store is gone now, the vitctim of Raleigh's sewer laws, which took down several eateries in our little town once we agreed to get our water from Raleigh rather than making it ourselves, as had been the way for lo those many prior years.

So, no great little ice cream places here. Unless you count the gelato store downtown, and it SHOULD be counted, but it's not 'quaint' as much as 'done up,' and so loses a little of its appeal for me.

THIS week though will find us snorfing frozen lemonade from a paper cup purchased from a very quaint marina, feeding giant carp, lazing lazily on many a float at randomly selected locations, diving off pontoon boats into deep green water, crazing along on a tube behind a speeding ski boat, and otherwise leaving the world behind.

And that, my friends, is worth its weight in extra 'e's.

See you on the 20th.