Up the Lake- Cards Part 3

Click here for Part 2

By this point, our group of “kids” was older, and the total number of campers was thinned out further, giving us more firsthand experiences of the “grown up” game play. Besides standards of five card draw and seven card stud, I learned the rules of a couple new gambling pastimes well before playing poker while confusing Nick’s friends with drunken explanations of laser powered spacecraft.

 

Up the Lake- Cards Part 2

Click for Part 1

The other game I haven’t played since its official summer wasn’t due to a conscious choice, or mental damage.
 
The game ... was Spoons.
 

Up the Lake Cards- Part 1

The Shores of Tripoley
Or
Iffy You Could See What I Hear
 

Mighty Catchy Stuff: Jock Jams

 

I'm sure this one comes as a surprise to anyone who has met me...

Ever.

Up the Lake Raft Battles Part 2

 

Click Here for Part One

Up the Lake Raft Battle Part 1

When I posted the newest Up the Lake tale I was looking to link to a detailed reference to “the weeds” I knew I had written.  After digging in ancient folders I learned I never posted this long lost tale.  

Sherman, set the Wayback machine for Labor Day Weekend Up the Lake, 1997.

N-joy!!!
 

Mediocre Moments in Naval Warfare
Or...
Not to Be Used as a Flotation Device
 

Up the Lake- Sports Part 2

 Click Here for Part 1 

Up The Lake- Sports Part 1

A Sporting Chance

Or

Fields of Getting Creamed

 

 

E-Dorm Life- The Batcraft

Since these college stories mostly come from pointless demonstrations, learning performing skills, and embarrassing myself in front of the opposite sex, I thought I’d highlight some actual engineering learning for a change.

Up the Links

It will take a while before I get my head straight enough to write new Up the Lake stories, so here’s an index of the old ones for easier access than using the “Up the Lake” subject, since we all mention the place constantly, this will link only to the stories.

[Later edit- I have added new ones since this originally appeared, and will continue to add new links anytime I write more.]

As a bonus, before the index, here’s a poem my Mom wrote in 1982 that really sums up the place and how we all feel about it:

Up the Lake- Toast

Once upon a time…

A pretty homogenous group consisting of Italians from the Bronx (and maybe some others, but they converted) that were part of “send city kids into the woods" projects were staying at camps on a lake up near Bear Mountain. 

By swimming or boating across that lake, they discovered a wonderfully enchanted land.  First they brought dates to this land for picnics, and over time those picnics rapidly progressed through sleep overs in tents, to platforms and finally hand built cabins allowing them to spend more time Up the Lake.  

The relationships of the dating couples also grew…into families.

Large, loving, loud families

For the next four to five generations, the descendants of that original group, (plus some very special friends who might as well be family) had a continuous series of crazy story and lifelong bond generating adventures every summer in, on and around those cabins and that Lake.

And now, after more than ninety years, it’s over.

Index of Anabelle and Daddy Ad-veeeeen-tures! Yeah! *Jazz Hands*

Because of reasons that I no longer wish to talk about-

and are all stupid-

Up the Lake did not open this past summer with extremely short notice.

Outside of the enormous pile of suck that embodied were some specific issues.

Up the Lake: Childhood Fair Years- Part 3

Click Here for Part 1

Click Here for Part 2 

The game in question was trout fishing.  

There was a shallow swimming pool type area heavily overstocked with heavily overfed trout.  Snagging was not allowed, and none of the fish being kept in the piscine concentration camp ever looked interested in eating anything.  The tackle and bait supplied probably didn’t help matters.  Fishing poles were given out, but they were reelless. At the end of the tied on string was a small hook featuring an eraser sized piece of either raw calamari…or dry caulking.

The sum total of our fish winnings was far less than the number of Rambo knives we took home.

Up the Lake: Childhood Fair Years- Part 2

Click Here for Part 1

Aside from crowding together to laugh at each other at that old time picture booth, once we hit our teen years, our folks let us wander the Fair on our own with set check in and return times and locations. Note to modern parents: we pulled this off successfully year after year without the use of cell phones.

Yes, Up the Lake people do have a limited form of telepathy.

Also known as: “Fear of the wrath of a worried and angered Italian Mother after a missed check in.”

Up the Lake: Childhood Fair Years- Part 1

Click Here for Modern Fair Adventures

(With an update added today! Vocal Trash returning next year! YAY!)

Click Here for Transitional Fair Years 

Heading up to the Duchess County Fair was an annual excursion from Up the Lake for an insanely large number of us (or a number of us large insane people) during a great many years in my youth. I’m not sure how it began, but one thing is for certain:

Our parents were far better at getting children suffering from Up the Lake levels of exhaustion out of bed in the wee hours of the morning than we ever were. 

Up the Lake: Transitional Fair Days Part 2

ClickHere for Part 1

When everyone tried to go through the “Haunted Pirate” dark ride, Kim’s car started shooting sparks and flames out the back like an old zip cord motorcycle.  Lauren and Ashley screamed (a lot) and told Kim to move her hair.
Then Lauren turned to me, wisely stationed on the ground, and shrieked, “I survived the friggin’ Wheel of Death, now I’m gonna die in this crappy haunted house.”

Up the Lake: Transitional Fair Days Part 1

Click Here for Modern Fair Adventures

We often went to the Fair as kids, but then high school activities and early college startups blocked that part of our schedule.  The normal amounts of chaos Up the Lake should have kept focused on the mountain for a while once we graduated...but we liked to expand our horizons.

Up the Lake: Modern Fair Days

All’s Love at Fairs and Wars

Or

Agricultural Adventures

It’s Duchess County Fair season in Rhinebeck New York.  Normally, we’d plan our vacations and/or Up the Lake stays around it.  This year, however, we aren’t going.  While my family’s absence may not be the largest protest in history, we’re demanding action.

Up The Lake: Parental Hike Part 2

Click here for Part 1

Extended swims had already thrown my allergies into crisis mode.  With the addition of the historic dust blowing into my face, I was blind from combinations of muddy tears and Olympic class eye boogers.  To add to the fun, my nose produced volumes of fluid normally only seen in the economy size beverages of a multiplex cinema.  One sharp corner that, once again in the grand tradition of Up the Lake nomenclature, had been referred to as the “turn by the yellow house” for generations, was summarily redubbed based on its proximity to “The Nose Blowing Tree.” 

Up the Lake: Parental Hike Part 1

The Longish Walk

Or

The Dusty and Winding Road

Walking to the Three Mile Stand was an important and regular part of our childhoods Up the Lake.  Similar to most key memory making moments, it eventually and with some regularity turned into a way to force exercise on our children.