Twin Lakes Shard One

Some of the happiest memories of my childhood were from Twin Lakes. For several summers, we camped out at Twin Lakes in Kalkaska County, Michigan. I was surprised to find how far west Kalkaska County is. It is almost on the shores of lake Michigan. We spent two glorious weeks camping. At the time, there was nothing built on our side of the lake. My father's sister and her husband, Aunt Grace and Uncle Clarence were there. My mother's brother, Clare, Aunt Grace and their children, Ernie, Jean and Earl also camped with us. Ernie was into drawing comics. He and I published a newsletter. My sister, Persis, has a copy of her contribution to the newsletter. Dragging our boat on a trailer we drove over a two rut "road" into the campground on the edge of Little Twin. After setting up the tents, one of the first orders of business was to build a latrine. The men went back into the forest and dug a hole. Then they fixed a branch across between two trees. One sat on the branch to do one's business. The first year, the men had found a piece of metal to use as a stove. Every year they buried the piece and dug it up the following year. The women cooked and canned the blackberries we picked. I remember my father and I and Aunt Grace went picking blackberries. One year we canned fifty quarts. I was scared of snakes. Michigan has only one poisonous snake, a sleepy rattle snake.