The Stump

The summer sun baked the tiny lake, as it had all summer, and I licked it up.  I loved this place, free from the chaos and stress of the large resorts, but full of life at the same time.  I had a history here, and coming here this summer I knew I had to treasure every moment.  I had come here every other year since I was just an infant, and it was unfortunately falling deeper and deeper into disrepair.  The small fish cleaning cottages where we used to play hide and seek as children were boarded up and cleaned out. The basketball court was missing a basketball hoop and the pavement was covered in large crevices, causing play to be impossible without spraining an ankle.  The wooden play set was molding away, the shuffleboard lane was stained with something I couldn't quite identify.  The gift shop and the restaurant had long since closed down and filled with random junk.  The paint on the cottages was peeling, the toilets rarely flushed.  The hinges were rusted, the paint was cracked.  The old aluminum boats were moldy and gross, the stove, well, lets just say we cooked over a campfire.  The beds creaked, the grass was dead, we had long since been forbidden to go onto the pier.  The boats leaked, the steps wobbled, and the cabins obviously hadn't been remodeled since 1950.  I knew that this place wouldn't be around much longer and a good percentage of people would have said a good riddance and left, but his place was special. 

My aunt and uncle had gotten married here all those years ago.  Then years later we came back and she lost the diamond from her ring.  Talk about coincidence.  My grandma grew up here, and we practically did too.  Eventually my great grandma sold the cabins off to some other people who, had some gambling um, issues.  They gambled away everything in the gift shop and the restaurant,  then they couldn't afford to pay the cleaning people anymore.  They didn't have the money or dedication to repaint or remodel so of course it fell into disrepair.  Eventually the couple ran out of things to gamble away so they sold it.  My grandma's old childhood friend bought it.  She tried so hard to get the resort up and running again but it was simply impossible, so she just decided to sell it.  We went back one last time and on the last day we found the stump. It was just a normal stump, nothing special, but we took one of the knives out of the kitchen and we each  carved our names into that one stump.  Now the space that was once my favorite childhood vacation place is being transformed into a retirement home but our memories will always remain.