In the early mornings I would crawl out of the bed I shared with my sister, repressing the desire to pull her snarly long hair and wake her. My dry, cracked feet felt cool against the warm, forgiving grooves in the wood floor. I'd throw my suit on, the outfit I wore all day, every day, and run down to the lake.

The grass was dewy and pliable, wrapping itself luxuriously around my ankles, tickling me. With each step, I felt my legs pressing firmly into the soft ground. When I got to the dock, I folded my hello kitty blanket into a square so I would have a dry place to sit. I could see her smiling at me through my crossed legs, which made me laugh because I was sitting on her head.

I was waiting for the mist to rise from the lake. I could hear loons, making their spooky cooing noises from some mysterious place in the cattails and water lilies that decorated the periphery of the lake. The sound made me shiver, and I searched for the beams that would indicate the sun was about to rise.

Before the sun came up, the mist grew slightly thicker and seemed to surround me. I looked up the hill and could not see the cabins. I hoped my friend Denise would make an appearance soon. We could take the boat out in the mornings, before breakfast was served and fishing parties were organized for the day.

The sun slid across the water toward me, the shimmering light blinding me as I readjusted myself to shade my eyes.

"Boo!" Denise screamed .I leaped off my towel, nearly losing my balance and falling of the dock. "Darn," I said, "You always know when I can't see you."

"Here. Have a granola bar," she said, making peace.

I usually got to drive, because I was the oldest, and because the driver also had to be strong enough to get the outboard motor on this rickety old aluminum boat going again if for some reason it flooded. It often flooded due to overzealous drivers, or sometimes it stalled when we ventured a little too far into the weeds.

We put on life jackets and sat on the life-preserver pillows that came in pastel colors, yellow, green, and blue. They felt like vinyl, and if your legs got too hot while you were sitting on them, they'd stick and there would be an imprint of the white tubed edging on your leg that took hours to go away. You had to remember to set your towel on top. It was best to go out in the morning. This way you could get to the life jackets while they were still dry. Otherwise, everyone getting in and out of the boat meant the life jackets would spend some time floating in the fishy gut-water in the bottom of the boat. That was water you didn't really even want to put your feet in.

Denise and I made sure we had the oars in the boat before we left the dock. We had a great deal of motor trouble. We liked to venture in places more well-suited to a canoe, but we only had this boat and had to make do.

I pressed the button on the motor, took a deep breath, and started pulling. One, two, three, four. Break. Wait a couple of minutes, so as not to flood the engine. Deep breath again. One, two, three....When I heard one tiny putter I grabbed the throttle and gave it some gas. We were in business.

Next