An old one for those who missed it.  A meditation on …. well, that’s up to you.

When I was younger I used to go up to Canada to visit the friends of my mother.  One of my mother’s friends got a boyfriend who had access to a huge property that had two lakes.  This was a period of time where I was an awkward teen (rather than an awkward adult) and we were not traveling up to Canada as much as when I was a kid.  When we did go, my brother had already been to “the lake” once or twice.  When I went, it was everything I ever wanted in my life… an summer party that brought all these people together.  The rare time I was in company of young people who were college educated or at least clever.  And there was plenty of beer and music.

The catch was that the boyfriend of my mother’s friend did not own this party spot, but it was owned and controled by his own mother, an 80 or so year old traditional upper middle class woman from Montreal.  She lived in “the big house” and somehow put up with the hippie antics of aging baby boomers and their strange and lost children – now too old for being seen as “the future.”  So summer was a short stay in the lives of these people, I too distant to do anything other than catch the edge of their lives, or that part of their lives that took place during the short, short, short Canadian summer.

That first summer I was at the lake I took it in as much as I could since no one knew when the old lady would die and the lakes would be sold to developers and all would have to disband.  I stayed in the cabin, a wonderful lean to built right up on the water’s edge.  That first summer turned into close to fifteen or so summers, not all of which I was able to attend the yearly gathering of friends and family that grew and ebbed as life would see it.  When the elderly women finally died two years ago, the property was finally split into parts and perhaps will become tract homes or be burned to the ground and the ground salted as is the new environmentalism.  However, the small edge of life, the life I wanted, was enough to bring me out of my teen years and into adulthood… or, at least that part of my life where I am older – with great memories of camp fires, conversations, and those cool summer nights listening to the water knock the water against the dock.  I am glad for those short bursts of normalcy and fun.  They are part of all I want in life.  This film is a tribute to that idea.