Friday, April 15, 2011

This one time? At band camp?

Ok, so I never actually went to band camp.  I never even went to camp ever.  But this one time?  At my dad's college reunion?  In Ithaca, NY?  Days before my 17th birthday?  I made out with a college senior.  Who was my tour guide. 

For a girl days before her 17th birthday, it was pretty cool.  He was so much older!  It was so inappropriate!  For the 22 year old, it might have been weird or creepy.  I was in high school.  I didn't even have my driver's license. 

But really, why am I writing about some weirdo guy I never cared to contact again?  Because whenever I think of the Finger Lakes, that is what I remember.  My father's 25th college reunion.  In reality, I should have many other stories come to mind ahead of the college guy. 

I should remember how my parents met by the shores of Cayuga Lake, which is where my father later proposed.
I should remember all the other wonderful college reunions up there, when I was nearly seven and another when I was not quite twelve. 
I should remember stopping to visit the first home my parents had together as newlyweds.  Mrs. Eggbert is long deceased, but the current owners were surprisingly eager to let my parents reminisce.
I should remember the wedding Nate and I went to a few years ago on Seneca Lake, and all the fun we had wine tasting the next day.

But as I drive up to Seneca Lake this weekend for my sister-in-law's bachelorette party, all I can think about is one evening in a quiet garden with a much older man.  All I can think about is the evening that a young girl on the brink of her seventeenth birthday was no longer quite such a little girl.