Prompt

1.     A Place     

As a kid, one of my favourite places to go was to the trailer. It was my grandparents trailer, we would stay with them for the weekend. We would sleep in the back of the trailer. In the evening, we would huddle around the campfire and roast marshmallows or cook hot dogs while the adults talked. When bed time came, we would go inside and watch the adults from the window, longing to stay up later just to hear what they had to talk about.

Everyday was filled with trips down to the beach for swimming and playing. The beach was beautiful, lots of sand and a huge pool of water, especially to a small child. Lake Bernard is/was the largest manmade lake in Ontario, and I loved ever second of the time I spent there. The water was always nice and refreshing. If you went out to a certain depth, you would encounter slick clay and you would slip around in the water as you swam or walked. Finding clay was always a messy good time.

Every evening there was a tractor ride. The owner would drive a tractor, with a wooden attachment that had benches for sitting and we would drive all over the park. The tractor ride was only about 30 mins long, but it was the something every kid looked forward to. We would all pile on, and watch the park go by. Sometimes, if we felt adventurous, we would try to stand without holding on, trying to keep our balance as the trailer jostled around. If you did it without falling down, you one a certain amount of respect from the other children

There was also a small store and it had a movie room in the back. We could take our allowance, and buy penny candy and popcorn, then sit down and watch a Disney movie in the back room. I remember how much I enjoyed watching Mary Poppins in that back room, and how it introduced me to my first viewing of Bed knobs and Broomsticks. I thought that it was the most unbelievable thing I’d ever seen.

For a few years, there was a pony that would appear on Saturday mornings. Back then, my allowance was only $1, and so were the pony rides. I knew that ride would take all my money, but I still couldn’t resist it, I had to ride the pony. Afterwards, I would be so upset that I couldn’t buy any candy or popcorn for the movie. My dad would give me an extra 50 cents so that I could see the movies. I don’t know what happened to the pony rides, I just remember that all of a sudden they were gone, and I was surprised how sad I was to not have that ride to look forward to.