Saturday Challenge: The Summer I Was 12

Another older GeneaMusing Challenge I finally got around to writing:

1) Remember when you were 12 years old? On a summer day out of school? What memory do you have of fun activities?

2) Tell us about that memory (just one - you can do more if you want to) in a blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a comment on Facebook.  Please leave a link to your own post in comments on this post. 

I would have been 12 years old in the summer of 1978. I had just finished sixth grade, the last of elementary school, and would be entering junior high at the bigger high school in the fall. It would have been a typical summer vacation for me out in the country. Playing outside and riding my bicycle around the neighborhood would have kept me entertained for many an hour.

Mom would have gone to Auburn one day during the week and I almost always accompanied her. We would walk around various stores in the morning. I believe Nichols, Neisner’s and Ames were the popular discount stores about then that she liked to browse through. We’d have lunch, perhaps meeting Dad and going to one of the local fast food restaurants or one of a couple diners that they liked in Auburn. After lunch, it was time to get groceries and go home.

Another day we were likely to “go to camp.” My friends, Peggy and Billy May had a cottage on Owasco Lake that their parents would move them to as soon as school was out. While the three of us played and swam in the lake, Mom and Barb, would sit chatting and working on craft projects together. Other times, Barb would bring them to our house and we would hang out there playing together.

Friday was likely busy as we packed the camper and got ready to go camping somewhere for the weekend. This would have been the year that Mom and Dad had traded the travel trailer for a mini-motorhome. It was easier for Dad to manipulate than the trailer behind the car. Driving and such was a bit harder after he had been burned badly a couple years before.

Looking through pictures of that summer, I realize that our big trip that year was to ECHO in Canada. We belonged to a group called the National Campers and Hikers Association (NCHA). Many campouts were with either the local, district, or state level groups of NCHA. Across Lake Ontario was ECHO- Eastern Campers and Hikers of Ontario- I think it stood for. We attended their big summer campout and then drove through part of Ontario on an extended journey home. One of the places that we stopped at was Upper Canada Village, a restored village of about 1867. I actually got to revisit this place this summer!