Family Lines
hen I was a boy, the two weeks off my father received each year were precious days, but we always spent them as a family, camping at Lake George. The Northway hadn’t been completed yet, so getting to the lake was an all-day trip from our home in South Jersey. Many times we’d arrive after dark. Setting up camp in the inky blackness was always an adventure. There was the inevitable wrestling match with the old Army surplus tent with its umbrella-style supports that never quite um-brellaed out properly. But we’d finally get it pitched. Then one of us would hold the flashlight as Dad tapped in the tent stakes with the back of my brother’s hatchet, holding a pair of socks on top of the metal pins to muffle the ping as he hammered. “Don’t
