by Mitch Lee

Large droplets were dripping from the eaves of my Limekiln Lake house that mid-March day in 1975.

The weather was feeling very spring-like and the snow pack was receding.

My sister and I were inside playing a modified home version of the classic television game show, “Beat the Clock.” 

Our timed tasks were performed in the sunlit laundry/play room which we used as our game show arena.

We howled and giggled at each other as we watched the egg timer slowly grind out its ticks before the alarm ultimately ended our feats of prowess.

We tallied our scores of the many games we played on an old chalkboard.

Between the sun beating into the room and our antics, the temperature soared to such an extreme that I had to go to the fridge and get some cold water from the glass orange juice jar we kept in the door panel.

I got a brain freeze when I poured the water down my throat and instantly the giggles began to bubble up all over again.

In just two hours my sister and I had worked ourselves up into unbridled craziness and were totally out of control.

Our screeching laughter and general bouncing around interrupted our mother who was sitting in the livingroom, half reading and half watching Monster Movie Matinee.

We knew we had driven her over the edge when we heard the dreaded, “Okay…that is enough!”

Like most children, we ignored her first warning. When she hollered it again we knew it was time to heed her words, but we could not get ahold of ourselves and laughed even harder.

When we heard the footsteps coming down the hall we suddenly realized her third utterance of “enough” would not be so good.

My sister quickly flopped onto a large beanbag chair while I sat on the laundry hamper trying to compose myself.

The disaster that surrounded us was pretty big.

Toys of all types, kitchen utensils, and open game boxes were strewn all over the floor.

When our mother walked in we gave her a wide-eyed stare.

“Okay.  Clean up and go outside and get some of the stink off of ya!” she said.

After cleaning up we were too tired to go out and play.

With all my energy used up I just flopped on my bed and opened up a paperback western and went off into another world.

When I finally looked up from the book the sun was glowing pink over the horizon…and my mother’s afternoon moment of peace had come to an end.

—

Mitch Lee, Adirondack native & storyteller,

lives at Inlet. ltmitch3rdny@aol.com