BY LAURETTE RONDENET
Legacies of the Lake
grew up on a lake
in Michigan
during the
summers and it was a wonderful way to spend those few months. I feel lucky. My first memories are being around two years old and taking naps under the bow of our army green tank of a boat. I would wear my yellow life jacket, which I loved to chew on, while my mom went round and round the lake pulling my siblings on skis. Seeing this, I couldn’t learn to ski fast enough.
My first skis were called fireballs. They were yellow and orange and very small. I was 9 years old and learned to ski from the back of a 15-horsepower rowboat that was manually driven from the rear and required a string to be pulled for it to start. We all learned the fear of propellers from the minute we were allowed to swim, which I still have, and successfully instilled that fear into my children. Lesson number one of Lake Life.
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