SUMMER ON THE DELAWARE....

This time of year - as school is over for the next few months - I am reminded of my idyllic (or so it seems as I look back on it) summers on the Delaware. When I was about 14 my parents joined the Eddyside Canoe Club. This was not the white gloves hoity-toity CLUB you might be picturing. Instead a group of townies with the old-timey wooden canoes had a tiny piece of property on the Delaware River with a concrete ramp and a rail/pulley sytem to get the canoes in and out of the water.
Several people had motor boats for pulling skiers. We would spend every day that the sun shone On and In the Delaware. We would learn the river's personality - when it was clear,We learned where the rapids were, where the big rocks were. We learned when it would "purge" (meaning green slimey things would float to the surface). There were canoe races, swimming across to the New Jersey side, swinging on the monkey vine and dropping into the water, learning to water ski. Around 3 or 4 in the afternoon we would pack up and head home. Our Moms would discuss amongst themselves the menu for the night ("I'll bring potato salad...I have some brownies...I'll make a jug of tea" and so forth) and they would pack the food and us in the car and we would return to the river for dinner. The Dads joined in after work. We all would swim, eat, ski, and then when it started getting dark - pack it up and head home. I never really thought about what the grownups were doing while we enjoyed Nirvana. I hope they were talking and laughing and having fun. Looking back I realize what a gift those summer days were. They would definitely be on my DO-OVER list!