Those Were the Days, My Friend

On those summer camping trips to Wisconsin, I was glad to forgo airconditioned Holiday Inns. I rallied around the campfire, toasting my
marshmallow by gleefully setting it on fire, taking my turn at Charades, and later, after you kids went to bed, chortling over the dirty stories your father and Scott—a pair of preachers’ sons—told.

It was worth it, in those days, because Joan and Scott Sebastian were our best friends; I loved them like the siblings I never had. Being with them and their kids took the pressure off your father and me, somehow made us seem easygoing, more like a postcard family than how we really were.