The beach where our mom had dropped off my brother and the French boys to camp was about twenty minutes from our farm, or to her mind, too close.
The next camping trip she plotted for the boys was to Mount Katahdin, a good three hours north, and the last bit not a road-road but a logging road. Mama drove them up and I can only imagine the light heart that beat in her chest as she drove back to our coastal farm.
She arrived home in the best of moods. She planned to pick the boys up in two days and boy, were we going to have fun without them! My older sisters made dinner, we cleaned up. Mama was having a real vacation day.
Until about midnight. Our dog started barking. Intruders!
No. My brother and the French boys back from the wild.
They had decided that this camping trip wasn’t to their liking, so they started walking. The luck of the French was with them and a lumber truck took them from Katahdin into Bucksport. In Bucksport, they had run into someone my brother knew who worked at the paper mill. The man had driven the three campers right up our driveway.
Mama very rarely admitted defeat, so she did what every wise woman does when she sees forces working against her will: she threw away her idea of banishing the boys, dusted off her book of dares and practical jokes, and gave us a summer for the record books.
The next camping trip she plotted for the boys was to Mount Katahdin, a good three hours north, and the last bit not a road-road but a logging road. Mama drove them up and I can only imagine the light heart that beat in her chest as she drove back to our coastal farm.
She arrived home in the best of moods. She planned to pick the boys up in two days and boy, were we going to have fun without them! My older sisters made dinner, we cleaned up. Mama was having a real vacation day.
Until about midnight. Our dog started barking. Intruders!
No. My brother and the French boys back from the wild.
They had decided that this camping trip wasn’t to their liking, so they started walking. The luck of the French was with them and a lumber truck took them from Katahdin into Bucksport. In Bucksport, they had run into someone my brother knew who worked at the paper mill. The man had driven the three campers right up our driveway.
Mama very rarely admitted defeat, so she did what every wise woman does when she sees forces working against her will: she threw away her idea of banishing the boys, dusted off her book of dares and practical jokes, and gave us a summer for the record books.
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