Sense of Place

  As parents we pass on many things, some intentional, some not so much. Hair color, a nose, or even a love for Jimmy Buffet or Audrey Hepburn. Without even noticing we transpose these traits, tastes and traditions- and even places- unto our children.
  One of the places passed on to me is Lake Tahoe.
  My Great Aunt Doris and Uncle Chatty moved to the Bay Area as young adults and fell in love with a lake that straddles California and Nevada in the heart of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. They enjoyed the beauty of the lake and its surrounding mountains, as well as the many activities, especially the skiing and judging by the constant card games I played with them as a child, the casinos too.
  So my father was fortunate enough to travel from his small-town in Southern Illinois and visit Lake Tahoe with his mom, aunt, uncle and cousins and it quickly found a place in his heart and became his go to destination. He took trains, planes and automobiles every chance he got- by himself or with a friend, wife or child or all the above.
  My childhood is peppered with memories of Tahoe. I remember playing GI Joes with my brother underneath the tall pines, using the rocks as our fortresses. I remember horseback riding with cousins and trying to fathom how the Donner Party was brought to cannibalism- what kid wouldn’t be fascinated by that nugget of history. I remember dipping my toes in the cold, cold water. I played my first and only hands of Blackjack, watched a sunset on a catamaran and attended a Shakespeare production on a beach.  
  But best of all I remember listening for hours to my aunt and uncle retell stories from the past, especially the one of how they fell in love in a little mid-west  mining town. Hard to say if it was the tales of the names and faces of those who came before me making me warm or the vodka tonics (‘Vitamin V’ as my uncle Chatty called it). No matter. Sitting in that cozy condo surrounded by family sealed the deal for me.
  So when my dad invited my little family to meet them and a couple siblings in Lake Tahoe this summer, it immediately warmed my heart and there was no ‘Vitamin V’ involved. I got to share this special place with my own family and form new memories to join the others, intertwined with a lake and tall pines and hopefully planting a seed of place in my little girl who will remember her first trip to Tahoe by the pictures we show and the stories we’ll tell.