Why I love and write about Lake Champlain, Vermont

Writing for me is cathartic. I get to put my moods to use. I don't know about other writers, but I like to use familiar places for my stories. The places you grew up in. The places you visited that left a memory so strong you use it. I spent most of my childhood growing up in Burlington, and South Hero, Vermont and in Port Washington, and Wantagh, on Long Island in New York, and a year in High School, in Ottawa, Canada. Despite spending more time here in Florida, as an adult, then in any one of those places, I still feel more at home in one of them. What makes a place feel like home. There are people in all of the places I've lived that are important to me. But the one I have always felt closest to is Lake Champlain and South Hero, Vermont.
Maybe it's because I had cousins to hang with, maybe it was childhood itself, maybe because it was a time where I had less to worry about. I never had to worry about the mortgage, the FPL bill or how to pay for food. Everything was there for me.
But I think it was the lake. I remember being under water and opening my eyes to see a fish swim by. It was crystal clear and I'd watch the stones on the bottom go by as I swam. And I had imagination. I think that was the beginning of my love for Lake Champlain. I always had imagination, I could be whatever I wanted. A pirates captive, a mermaid, a girl pretending to be a boy so I could fight in one of those old forts on the lake shore. The lake was magic. And it is still in me. Now that makes me smile.

Scenes from Vermont childhood

After my book was released on the first, I heard from a special close friend who I patterned a character in my book after. She reminded me of these two events

It must have been 1968 when we were on vacation in Vermont. Lake Champlain is one of the most beautiful places in the world. The VonTrapp family didn't go to Vermont for nothing. From Mount Mansfield, to Keeler's bay on the lake, there is nothing to compare to the scenery and the ambiance.

In the fifties and sixties there were lots of little gift shops everywhere. My mother and grandmother collected Fenton ware and tea cups galore. You know the kind of stuff they are calling shabby sheik and selling for a fortune to us boomers. It decorates tea rooms and little cafes. And we are buying it, it brings back memories, and it really is nice stuff.

Anyways, my whole family was there and my parents had allowed me to bring along my best friend Betsy from Canada. We had such a good time, water skiing in water so cold I wouldn't put my toe in it now. But to the young it is still a great lake for swimming, boating, fishing, you name it.

Well one night the whole family and several relatives were at camp and it was dark out. One of those nights on which you can see the milky way. And everyone started screaming, "there's a UFO outside right overhead." A massive scramble of people from the beach, the camp, out front sitting on the porch, or just anywhere, streamed out to the front lawn to get a glimpse.

They were all oohing and aahing. "Look at the lights, Oh my God, they might land." A myriad of yelling people massed a little closer together, and got quiet. And then it was gone, just like that. It was a huge ship in everyone's mind and to this day I have no idea what it was. And to this day I am pissed that I wasn't wearing my glasses and couldn't see a damn thing. I hated the way I looked in those horrible black foggles my parents had picked out. So I missed it.

The next day my friend and I decided to go for a rowboat ride. We hopped in the boat and started to leave. Then I heard it from my dad, "take your sisters with you." Just great, they wanted to be wherever I was and I wanted to have a little time to myself. So the two brats jumped in wobbling the boat horrible. And if I am not wrong, my other sister wanted in too.

So Betsy and I started to row, and we got quite a ways from shore. We might have tried to fish, I just don't remember. But after awhile in the hot sun, with no water, we decided to head back in. So we started to row, and row, and row, but we still drifted further from shore. Just then my parents and uncles and aunts drove by in a speedboat waving as they left. We started screaming for help, but I guess they thought we were waving and couldn't hear us over the motor.

I don't have to tell you what kind of mood we were all in when the cruiser's drove back by an hour or so later. They towed us in. To this day I have never set foot in a rowboat since and I never will.

Ah childhood how did we survive it?