Ready Set Go: Set a timer for 20 minutes and write about a favorite childhood memory.

Please stop me if you’ve heard this story before.

I spent every summer with my grandparents at their cottage on a small lake. Some of the best times that I remember were when their card club friends would visit for a few days. Let me just say that there were a bunch of people – I think I counted 17 once –  in a modest sized house. I was just lucky that no one else wanted the top bunk.

Imagine spending a week with about five other grandmas and five other grandpas and no other kids. It was all fun and games. Literally. They played about every card game,except poker.

No one cursed too much. There wasn’t any alcohol. There wasn’t such a thing as Facebook. The Internet was in the infant stages somewhere – it hadn’t gone big time yet. Hardly anyone had computers anyway.

So the entertainment was just a couple decks of cards. Sometimes they played lawn darts. There was always swimming and boat rides – weather permitting. At night, the men would go fishing. (My mom was the only woman that ever wanted to go fishing. However, she did not go during the card club visits. There wasn’t anywhere for her to sleep so she stayed home. I went fishing once and caught a huge fish. The challenge of fishing was lost for me. The fish is mounted somewhere. I can’t believe that my mom didn’t put my name on a little plaque underneath. She might have. I can’t remember)

One of my grandma’s friends made the best German chocolate cake in the world. I can’t even say which one. I know which one but I feel funny admitting someone made a better cake than my grandma. Those Sara Lee cakes just don’t hold a candle to my grandma and her friend’s cake baking skills.

Plus, you can’t beat homemade ice cream. It’s really delicious.

Talking about this almost makes me want to start a card club, except that I don’t play euchre or pinochle. It would also mean that I’d have to be the hostess with the mostest.