The most fun I have ever had was a very, very long time ago.  We were at the theme park, not for the first time that summer… probably it was our third or fourth time there.  The fun was that I had the whole map of the park in my head… Not just where the front entrance was of where the Smurf Village was… but detailed locations of each ride and the direction of the water rides and the baby rides too.  It was amazing, to command such personal power.  I felt I could go anywhere, without feeling like I was guessing and getting myself lost.

I still remember that day.  I traveled the whole park and had fun knowing where I was going to meet up with so-and-so, or him, or her.  We did not have cells phones, and no one actually bought walkie-talkies.  After playing with toys like connected phones, batteried walkie-talkies, and anything as fun and futuristic, we knew the real thing was worth waiting for.  So, in this dark age, we had our maps, our watches to tell time, and the promise to be back at the main gates, if, God forbid, we were to get lost.

What mad this “routine day at the park” the most fun, was that our parents let us run free.  Nowadays, with cell phones, there is no way to recreate the “free feeling” coupled with the “a sense of fear and excitement” from the possibility of becoming lost and never found again except as a chopped up corpse at the back of the theme park where a swampy forest grew.

The real fun, of course, was being out of sight and getting on the “best” rides, again and again, if we were so enamored.  We could also buy all the funnel cakes with double ice cream and strawberry sauce with nuts and pieces of chocolate cookies as well… Without our parents warning that we would never be able to eat dinner.  For some reason, this was before my first job (I got one as soon as I could lawfully be paid), and I think my mom was generous on this day.  So, with what I thought was enough money to ransom a mouse from a cat, I had fun all day…  Getting lost, buying everything I wanted, and staying until the sky got dark and the crickets and the stars came out.

I feel lucky that I have a memory of fun that is actually officially sanctioned by adults and by the law.  I now look for fun things with a mind much more attentive to how slow things go rather than how fast things go.  I wander the liquor stores to find “Vintage” rather than “50 Proof.”  I pay money to watch athletes, professional acrobats, and other people pushing the limits of living, so that I can laugh at them.  And sometimes, the laughs don’t come until the final score is made.

So,  as the height of summer approaches, I am going to slowly sit in my Muskoka Chair by the lake, and sip a cocktail that I hand make from several bottles of beer and liquor, and enjoy the fact that it will take the sun several hours to set. I won’t go back into the cottage until I hear the lonely, forlorn, cry of the loon for its mate.