SUMMER VACATION AT LAKE CHAPMAN

SUMMER VACATION AT LAKE CHAPMAN

Lake Chapman is a small lake about 15 miles north of Scranton Pennsylvania. My sisters, Jean and Colleen, and I visited the Lake in 2008 which was 44 years after we had stayed there on a family vacation. Believe it or not it hardly changed. There were a few more houses and indoor plumbing arrived but aside from that not much changed. Many of the roads were still dirt roads. There were lots of empty lots. The pace was extremely slow and the neighborhood was filled with families with small children. The lake was in walking distance from everyone’s house or cottage. It was like going back in time almost Twilight Zone like.

The Summer of 1963 my dad rented a vacation cottage at Lake Chapman. All of my dad’s sisters and his brother lived in Scranton and several had rented houses at the lake as well. My Aunt Ann and Uncle Frank owned a real log cabin at the lake. The cottage we rented was at the end of Jay Street nestled right next to the woods. Although the cottage was small we managed to sleep 6 children and 4 adults. I slept on a hammock on the porch! One of my dad’s best friends Jackie Gitch and his wife Dot stayed with us. They didn’t have any children but we had enough in our family to share. Mr. and Mrs. Gitch weren’t related to us but it didn’t stop us from calling them Uncle Jack and Aunt Dot. What the hell did we know we were just kids? My Uncle Jack was like a lumber jack. He was really big and lived in the woods by Lake Hopatcong. He had a pond with ducks and was a big game hunter. He had a knotty pine room with lots of rifles, hand guns and knives. There were heads of elk, deer, and moose on the walls. There was also a bearskin rug that Jack would tell everyone he fought and killed. He had scars on his chest he would show you to prove it. I believed that tale until age 17 when my dad told me the scars were from WWII and not a bear. Somehow telling me that didn’t change my opinion of Jack as a matter of fact it may have enhanced it. One of Jack’s talents was he could really draw well. He would be eating breakfast at the table and sketch pictures of Woody Wood Pecker, the Roadrunner and Coyote. Stuff like that…it was so cool. One day while walking back from the lake I asked Jack about his tattoos. He told me he got them when he was in the Navy. He asked me if I wanted one? I said sure but I didn’t think my dad would be OK with that. Jack said “trust me it will be ok.” So when we got back to the cottage Jack asked his wife, Dot, for a special pencil. Dot routed around in her purse and pulled out this pencil. Jack asked me what I wanted and where. He made some suggestions and I decided on a destroyer ship on my chest. It took a really long time and I had to be very still but finally he finished. I went and looked into the mirror and couldn’t believe how cool I looked. This was like Christmas Morning to me. I had a real tattoo of a ship on my chest…awesome! Jack was right too my dad thought it was just fine. As the week went on and the more and more I went into the lake the more faded the tattoo became but I didn’t care I still liked it.

I learned to drive that summer. My dad taught me on a car he bought for my cousin Robbie. It was a late 50’s French Peugeot. A four speed on the column. My dad said it I could drive this car I could drive anything. He wasn’t kidding but he did teach me and I could drive it. There was virtually no traffic there and all the roads were dirt so I really couldn’t do much damage. This was the best summer ever. I learned to drive and got a tattoo!!

Every day we all went swimming at the lake with my brother, sisters and 12 cousins and every night we had cook outs and my mom had her stereo on the porch blasting Irish and Scotch tunes to the neighborhood. Sometimes during the day we would all go and pick blackberries and raspberries in the fields and bring them back to my aunts, Agnes and Ellen. Those berries turned into pies in no time at all. I think Agnes and Ellen made pies every day! Wow was this the best summer or what?

Most of the people at the lake all seemed to know one another and if a mom or dad needed go home and get or do something other parents would offer to watch their kids. Parenting seemed to be a shared responsibility between other parents. Ironically when we went back for a visit in 2008 parents were still watching neighbors kids. I could hardly believe that sharing of responsibility exists today but it does at a small family lake in Pennsylvania, Lake Chapman.