Lights Out

Karen playing "The Very Thought of You" on Kazoo

Last nigh when I returned home from visiting my in-laws six miles away, I found out that in the hour we were gone, our little town experienced a really strong thunderstorm. Tree limbs were knocked down in our yard. One very large tree in the yard of a neighbor in the village took it the worst, blowing off a huge limb that took out the power lines. We were in the dark.


Thankfully it has been so hot here the last couple of days, I had already planned a Sunday night dinner on the grill. As dinner cooked, my daughter challenged her father and me to a game of Yahtzee. We ate and it was still so warm outside we decided to go for a ride and get ice cream, returning home in time to find candles and get them lit before it was completely dark.


We sat outside on our deck and watched the stars come out. We talked about the moon. Karen got out her harmonica and her kazoo. She made me laugh with a really good rendition of "The Very Thought Of You" played on the kazoo! I recently found a story Karen wrote in 1997 about Grammie Rose's Camp. This place where we now live was the beloved camp of my husband's grandmother before we replaced it with a beautiful new home. Karen read the essay aloud. The minutes turned to hours and we found ourselves laughing at squinting and looking at the candle flames. A silly pastime, to be sure.


The lights finally came back on and we went in the house. The magical evening was over. Before we built our home, Grammie Rose's Camp was a quick escape from our daily routine. We found things to do here then because there wasn't any electricity on the property. What was magical about last night was the look of the yard in the dark. Our activity reflected how we would have spent the hours here in the past. For a brief moment in time, I felt like the camp resurrected as we enjoyed an evening's escape from the ordinary.