Lazy Days at Lacey

    I was eager to return to Lacey Lake, but found it to be a bit more difficult than expected. It was early summer. Dad and I had been up since 7:00 a.m. The corn was several inches out of the ground and the weeds were beginning to take over, so it was time to cultivate. In those days we didn't use herbicides to spray and kill the weeds. Cultivating was a much slower and lengthy task. We had to mount the cultivators onto the tractor so they could rip the weeds out of the ground around the corn. The corn was very small so shields had to be attached on each side of the corn to keep from ripping it out, or burying it with dirt.
     It was a beautiful summer's day. I asked my parents if I could ride my bike to the lake, but they had other plans for me. It was a perfect day for cultivating, and Dad had to leave for work by 2:30 p.m. That left me to cultivate. I looked out at the nearly 30 acre field of corn, and seeing how small it was, I knew I would only be traveling about two miles an hour. That meant I would be out there until dark and still wouldn't finish it that day.
     I wanted to return to the lake so badly that my insides ached with anticipation as the tractor crawled and I was unable to take my eyes off the row of corn for even a second or it would stray one way or the other and rip out the very small, delicate stalks of corn. By the next afternoon I had finished the field and gotten permission to go to the lake. I peddled my bicycle as fast as I could go.
    As I reached the parking lot, I seen the girl from Texas and another girl walking along the lakeshore. When they saw me, they smiled and waved. It wasn't long after that the three of us were sitting along the narrow beach, soaking up the sunshine and talking.