Return to Brantingham - Continued

The husband and I had a wonderful day today as we revisited my family's past and he got to meet some of my more distant cousins.  First we went in to Lowville - about 17 miles away from the lake house - where my maternal grandparents lived after moving from Central America. The husband  got to see my grandparent's former home pictured below (which my grandfather had bought for his parents around 1920), the family cemetery plot with my grand parents and great grand parents graves, and a farmer's market at the county fair grounds where we bought luscious looking preserves from a delightful Mennonite woman.  

Once we got back to the camp, we took out the "Class of 41" - my brother's 1941 Chris Craft (pictured above) which is the main photo on this blog - and we circled the lake a number of times stopping to wave and talk to friends from long ago.     We finished the afternoon with wine and munchies sitting in Adirondack chairs looking across the ever changing scenery of the lake.  Tonight I am taking him to dinner to a restaurant that has been here for at least 50 years.

The husband at the wheel

A windblown me in the rear seat

My brother joins us tomorrow and the fun and making of new memories will continue.  More posts tonight if we don't treat ourselves to too many cocktails. :)

Brantinham Lake - A Life Saver for a Gay Youth

In some of the earliest posts on this blog I spoke of my summers at our family summer home on Brantingham Lake in the western Adirondack Mountains.  Thankfully, the "camp" as they are called in the Adirondacks remains in the family and this summer I plan to take the boyfriend - who will be my husband by that point - for his first visit.  For those who watch the video, our place is the white boathouse to the left of the long point (named Long Point) that extends well out into the lake from the top of the frame.  Not excelling in team sports and suffering from jeers of "fag" at times at school during the school year, summers - where I excelled in swimming, water skiing and sailing - and my wonderful summer friends were literally a life saver.  No matter how long I live, a part of my heart will always be at Brantingham.

Magic Summer Memories From Long Ago

Long time readers who followed my coming out story from the get go on this blog know what a crucial role summers at the family summer home on Brantingham Lake in the Adirondack Mountains of New York State  played in my life.  Excelling at water skiing, sailing and swimming I wasn't the nerdy kid who got called fag and other epithets from time during the school year where I often found myself among the last to be picked for teams in PE class.  Of equal importance was the fact that my summer friends were pretty amazing and outclassed my school year tormentors by light years.  Those summers literally saved me from suicide as a teenager.  Recently, one of the old summer gang who I have not seen or been in contact in decades posted a message on the Facebook page dedicated to the lake that summed up those summers well:

You all need to understand how lucky you are to live, have lived, or spent a summer on beautiful lake Brantingham. My next birthday will be my 59th, and my last summer on the lake was nearly 41 years ago. I feel compelled to write this note and to share with you the memories of the lake, the times in the boats at night, skiing in the mornings at 6am so as to be the only boat on the lake..... these are the memories that never leave me and are the ones I use to help me get to sleep at night. ........ What's strange is the Brantingham summer memories are of only 10 summers spent on Brantingham.....and the other 48 of my summers are spent elsewhere......none compare to those memories at the lake! 

He goes on to say that his best friends were those who comprised our group of friends who lived in cities scattered across New York State and in some cases New Jersey.  In response to his message I scanned a composite of some old pictures from circa 1968 -1970 that is set out above (yours truly is at  lower left in blue).  Many of the group still have homes on the lake that have been passed down through families as has ours other than for one interlude.  I haven't been back in many years and have vowed to change that this coming summer fate willing.  As for the group of friends, thanks to Facebook many of us are once again in contact with each other and are again reliving in our memories those special, and in my case life saving, summers.  I do count myself lucky for having been fortunate enough to have those summer experiences and now such wonderful memories.