L – Lakes and a Loony Bin

Lakes - I have was blessed as a child that when I was in 3rd grade we moved to a house that was a block from the lake that had a beach and boat landing available to the neighborhood association. I was probably 10 when I got my first boat, a canoe, 12 when I got a 12ft pram with a motor and from there it was a sailboat and finally a small ski boat. Some of my favorite memories on the lake were our trips to Champs Drive-n. Champs was a small burger joint, similar to a McDonalds. To get to it you could drive about 20 minutes from our house, but we would take the canoe or the pram there and that was the best. It would take about 2 hours one way, because we paddled across three lakes going under the roads via the large drainage pipes connecting the lakes. We would grab a burger, shake and fries and then 2 hours of paddling to get back home. Would you let your child do that today? Probably not, but back then life was just simpler.

Loony Bin – As I said my mom worked and while I was in school she worked in a State Hospital, a mental hospital, an insane asylum or a loony bin. She started out working the switchboard and eventually taking classes at night, she worked her way up to being the head of the accounting office. This place was built in 1870s and in the 50 held as many as 3100 mentally ill patients in the sprawling 500 acre complex. This Victorian Style building was a key reason that even though I was in High School in the 70s I never did drugs. When I would have to go and see my mom at work I would see the mental patients wandering around and in a few cases would see them being transferred in straightjackets. I would see other teenagers my age totally out of their mind from bad LSD trips. It scared me so much I never tried drugs. Don’t get me wrong the opportunity was there, in 9th grade my best friend was a dealer. I just did not want to end up like that.