A Bit of Nostalgia with Your May Day

The air feels like summer today. And I’m not talking about the temperature. I’m not talking about the repressive, suffocating heat that comes along with Arizona summers. It’s been hot for weeks and we still have 30 degrees and many more months to go. That stale, blistering air is not what I’m referring to.

The air feels like freedom today. And it feels still; a perfect summer stillness. It’s slightly overcast too, the way it was lots of days spent on Raystown Lake. Slightly overcast, but not enough to keep us out of the water or the boat or off the beach. It’s weird how well I can recall summers spent at Raystown. How I can remember the streets of Huntington, and the layout of the grocery store where we bought our food once a year for only five years. How I can remember exactly what the Oar Shop looks like, inside and out, and the precise feeling I got while feeding the catfish in the marina; a mixture of horror and extreme curiosity. I can tell you unerringly how much I hated loading our luggage into wheelbarrows and taking them down the path to the boat, and how much I enjoyed the restaurant where we sometimes bought ice cream. It’s weird that I can remember how much I loved playing card games after the sun went down and the moment my dad invented “Little Noodle and Cheeto Soup.” I can see the island graveyard in my mind and feel both mine and my mother’s incredulity that my dad actually found it. I can see the trees and feel the poison ivy and taste the garlic we ate to ward off the mosquitoes. I remember how important I felt to be called Navigator and sit at the wheel with my dad and point out which numbers on the map I wanted to visit for the day. And I can feel the crushing disappointment that accompanied seeing all of the houseboats, including ours, making their way slowly back to the marina on Saturday morning.

In the grand scheme of things I didn’t spend much of my life on Raystown Lake. I have now spent just as much time on Lake Powell and filling my summers with other activities. But today the air felt exactly like summer and it felt exactly like Raystown, Pennsylvania.

Happy May Day.