Peninsula Memories

Guest Opinion

By Julia Parton | May 25, 2024

My neighborhood on Old Mission Peninsula is etched in my memory as a magical place.

Summer vacations were particularly special as I think back, always beautiful with the beach and the woods. How lucky I was to have had such good close neighborhood friends. All the kids played together, and the older bunch watched out for the younger ones. There was always so much fun at our beach on the Grand Traverse Bay and exploring the woods. It was the best time in my life.

I can remember by tradition that shortly before school got out for the summer break, the neighborhood raft would be maintained for launch on an appointed Saturday morning. It became an annual event. The area dads of the five neighborhood families would meet at the beach to repair and paint the raft that would be anchored in the bay. At the same time, the moms made everyone breakfast, and all the families ate together on the beach.

I can still remember how that day made summer feel so close. A couple weeks later, when school was out for the summer break, the raft would be set in place in about 12-foot-deep water. There began the official start of summer.

When I think back 60 years, which is about as far back as my memories begin, I don't know how all the moms did what they did in those summers. Any one of them were known to make tons of cookies, gallons of Kool-Aid, along with being disciplinarian to whichever kid needed it. They always made sure that one of them was down on the beach as we kids were swimming. That was a rule. No swimming unless there was an adult somewhere on the beach. Everyone knew how to swim, but as a precaution, the adults insisted on being there.

I assume that rule was never broken; at least I don’t recall that it was. The one particular rule I do know was broken, since I was the offender, was swimming to the raft. Only the older kids were allowed to go in water that deep. But at eight years old, after a summer of sneakily trying, I finally did it! (It was a well-kept secret, and I only tell it now since my parents are both gone. My friend did tell her own mom we had done that many years later. Her mom replied that she knew it; she had watched us all summer to make sure we didn’t drown.)

The beach holds many memories of not just swimming, but of bonfires on the cool summer evenings. Remember when you were a kid and put a hotdog on a stick, roasted it until it was all charred black? We actually ate those! And there was always that Jiffy popcorn that my dad could shake and make it turn out over the fire, and someone’s mom would always bring s’more fixings before the fire was put out.

Sometimes we had sparklers, and sometimes the older kids could stay and camp out all night. It was so fun to play in that big green tent with the broken zipper on the door flap. The same tent the older kids didn’t want us younger kids near because we tracked so much sand in it. And at all costs, nobody could get near it with a sparkler! Those simple nights from a carefree time are etched in my memory forever.

There were woods behind all our houses. No idea who owned the property, but all the kids played and explored in those woods as if we owned it. I recall it was laden with poison ivy and it never failed if you played in the woods, you got poison ivy. There was an absolutely forbidden abandoned tree house in those woods, and it simply drew everyone to the very place we were warned constantly never to go. With the rotten boards and rusty nails, it should have been obvious to us even as kids to avoid the hazard.

A real live-and-learn moment came when my brother did actually step on a nail and had to get a tetanus shot. Adding insult to injury, he got grounded. Shortly after, together the dads took the old tree fort down. The end of an era.

Living on Old Mission Peninsula as a child with the neighbor kids and several surrogate parents was the best time in my life. The beach and the woods both have remained my favorite places. Many of the people are gone now, but I do still connect with some remaining few. We all agree that Old Mission Peninsula on Grand Traverse Bay was an enchanted place to live and grow.

Julia Galligan Parton grew up on the Old Mission Peninsula. Retired and now living in Florida, she enjoys writing about her childhood.