A Story for the end of Summer ...

The Song, See You in September was a 1950s billboard hit by the Tempos. It perfectly summed up what I said to my friends as my family got ready to pack the car for our summer vacation at Woodland Beach on southern Georgian Bay -- an hour and a half north of Toronto.

Woodland was my go-to vacation spot.

My mother was so determined to get the family out of the city, she'd rent a cottage each year, get my siblings, load up on groceries, and off-we'd-go.

My father would drop everyone at the rented cottage, unload the car, leave, and wouldn't return until our rental was finished. As I may have indicated in previous stories, my father was a little different and most definitely not a cottage guy... "he'd wear a 3 piece suit to a picnic".

Cottages in the 1950s weren't very well equipped -- outhouses and pots under the

bed were common. Somehow, they worked.  It was simply part of going to the cottage.

Relatives from Toronto and Detroit and Connecticut would line up their holidays to be at Woodland during the same time as our family and rent their own cottages. It was a great time to get re-united with cousins and I had lots of them.

The soft, sandy beach was about a mile long in a half-moon shape. 

The freshwater bay was very shallow and it was fun to go from one sandbar to the next. The sun dropped into that bay every night to provide sensational sunsets as we'd gather beach wood to build a bonfire for marshmallow roasts.

But, days on the beach were magic.  The wind would kick up regularly and that combined with the sandbars, created fabulous waves.

Not Malibu waves but big enough to keep us in the water for seven or eight hours of

body surfing.

About noon every day, a parent would beach-deliver a lunch of peanut butter sandwiches and ice-cold Cokes in the green glass bottles.

We sat in a circle on the sand, baking in the sun and diving into the picnic basket. I still remember how that Coke burned all the way down. There would always be one Canadian kid in our group who'd look up, mouth full of Jane Parker bread and peanut butter

and announce with a straight face  ... "This is just like the States!". 

At that time, in kid-speak, all the best stuff was "from the States".

Then, I thought nothing could be better than a warm, sunny day on this beach in southern Georgian Bay -- the same may be true today.

On one of those glorious summer days in 1958, all my relatives were assembled at our cottage in the middle of the afternoon waiting for my brother to arrive with his brand new Plymouth Fury Commando with its space-aged push-button transmission.  

He beamed with pride as he gave everyone a tour of the car, inside and out. The oohs and aahs were perfectly timed in unison.

Then, inexplicably, he tossed me the keys and said ... "take it for a ride". He didn't offer it to another brother or one of my relatives, just me. I wasn't about to say no. I couldn't refuse. I didn't know he trusted me that much.

I slipped behind the wheel, kept my foot on the brake, pushed the D button on the

panel and the car lurched forward. I still remember the new smell. I didn't touch the gas, the car moved by itself. I was totally focused on the road and took it about a mile up the beach road then a little panic started to seep in when it occurred to me that I had to go back.

I was on a stretch of the 2 lane road with no extra space and the car seemed a block long. Trees lined both sides. I had never heard about the 3-point-turn maneuver but I somehow figured it out. I had to stop, turn sharp left, turn the wheel fully the other way and back up, make another sharp turn and I'd be on my way.

I made the sharp left then horror struck me. 

Beads of sweat formed on my forehead. I sat staring at the space-aged push-button dashboard panel ... where's the button for backward?  No B! 

I stared at that panel for a very long time before closing my eyes and pushing R ... hoping it was for reverse. It was the 50s, kids knew forward and backward but would never use the word, reverse.

I made the trip back to the cottage without incident and slowly pulled up in front. Nobody was there to meet me, not even my brother. Nobody seemed to be concerned about the safe return of his gorgeous new car, or me.

What a  feeling -- fabulous! 

You know, "just like the States"!

I didn't have a driver's license.

I had never driven a car before. 

I was 12 years old.