Years ago our family had a darling young babysitter who told me she never realized how fortunate she was to live near Lake Minnetonka until she went to college with a bunch of kids who grew up elsewhere. As they discussed summer plans and she described bike rides and beach days and sailing islands, a friend stared at her bewildered. So our sitter asked her friend what she did in the summers at home and her friend replied, “Fight with my high school classmates over the one good gas station job.”
Lake Minnetonka summers are straight from a Rockwellian painting if only Rockwell had painted idyllic scenes with more boats. Long, lazy days for children spent swimming in the lake, inevitably running into friends. Walking through Excelsior and getting into the queue for an ice cream cone, a frozen custard, an iced coffee. A concert in the Commons stretched out on a blanket on the lawn listening to jazz and watching fireflies overhead. An art fair with a friend to choose a spectacular something we didn’t even know we needed. The Wayzata Boardwalk to eat al fresco and sip a craft cocktail while watching a cotton candy sunset from a patio with a front-row view. A summer drive with the convertible top down. A bike ride to a farmers' market for tomatoes that taste like tomatoes. A boat cruise or two or twenty to feel the sun on our faces and drink in the fresh air. Fourth of July gatherings in our quaint downtowns for fun runs and parades and carnival games. Dropping a line off a dock to catch a prized largemouth bass. A round of golf on a sunny day with light wind. A sailing race aboard an X-Boat in perfect wind. A languid afternoon spent in a hammock with a good book and a lake view. A pickle ball game on courts surrounded by verdant green. A late-night swim in a quiet bay. An early morning stand-up paddleboard when the water is glass. All this. Right here. All summer long.
If reincarnation exists, I’d quite enjoy returning as my own children (aside from having a neurotic mother) because lake life is all they've ever known. When they make plans to go swimming and have to decide which beach, these are the best problems to have. They can’t comprehend their good fortune quite yet. They likely won’t understand until they are in college or a city apartment or a state that can boast only 3,000 lakes.
We have finally arrived at the much anticipated season of long luxurious days and long luxurious weekends. Now it’s a matter of choosing what we do with them. Let’s take our cue from the young ones. Let’s all get outside near the water with our favorite people and stay just a little bit longer than we planned. Because the only weakness of lake life summer is they are over far too quickly. Like the humble garden tomato: perfect in its simplicity but only available for a very short time.