The Lake

I drove out to Lake Whitney this weekend to spend time with my dad and mom—and my dad's friends and their wives and children. Lake Whitney has been the source of a large number of childhood memories. I remember either holidays at Lake Whitney or holidays with my best friends, Amy and Joy. (Or school, but that doesn't count.) There was the mudslide. The boat rides. The Cheetos. The bedroom with the bunkbeds and the fan. The tubing. The accidental wine-drinking. (We always had red Dixie cups, and mine used to get lost in the profusion of other red Dixie cups, and a couple of times I'd drink somebody's wine or beer or whiskey. This time, funnily enough, I took a huge gulp of mom's wine and had to spit it out. God, that stuff is disgusting.)

My dad's friends are lake-lovin' good ol' boys, which is weird, because my dad definitely isn't a good ol' boy, though he likes lakes well enough. (You would not believe the amount of fun these guys can have on boats.) He smokes and that's basically it. There's Jimmy, who's big and black-haired with about half a million kids and a divorce and who actually asked one of children, one time, when my dad asked how old the kid was, "Boy? How old're you?" (Think gigantic Texas accent.) He's an aerospace engineer and one of the richest men in Texas. (No. The irony is not lost on me.) There's Donny, a lawyer who's moving to somewhere in Eastern Europe (he works for the government), who has been married either twice or three times (the second time to a babysitter) and has escaped with only two or three kids and a fortune slightly smaller than Jimmy's. There's Robert, who's a track coach extraordinare and who teaches Environmental Science AP and who keeps on getting teacher of the year awards and recognition in state and national competitions for his coaching and how well his runners do. (And he's friends with Mr. Wellmann, meaning that this world is tiny.) And then there's Ross, who's really just Ross. He's a rather Pan-esque character.

It's weird being there, really. I feel like I'm being given access to this society that I am somehow inherently a part of and yet am completely unfamiliar with. They talk about sex and smoking and drinking and hunting. And occasionally they burst out with rants about Nietzche or consumerism or imminent domain. Two of them--Donny and Jimmy--lived in Jester for a couple of semesters. All of them went to A&M at one time or another. And they're all just so happy. And can have so much fun on boats.

Then again, boats are really really really fun to drive. I sort of want one, now. So I guess I know what they mean--and not just about boats.

Currently Reading:
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
(That's right, Sorcerer's not Philosopher's, because I'm reading the books I read first. The American versions. Which means that excepting the first one I have to read the rest in hardback. Sigh.)