I got lost in those vineyards once, when I was four, wandering away from my always attentive mother who was busy preparing a meal. I sat outside on the wooden steps in my sandals and shorts, waiting for dinner. But I looked over at those long straight rows of grapevines tied to posts just across the bumpy dirt road, and I could not resist. So I walked there, deep into the vineyards where it became a maze, and I wandered for what seemed hours alone. I was not afraid. I was soul dancing in a magical place. The air was full of scent, a smell I equate with Welch’s grape juice to this day, and the birds soared above me in a blue and white sculptured sky.

Ultimately, I heard my mother’s voice calling from afar. Ultimately, I found my way back to the cottage. It stays in my mind all these long years later because that walk set me apart for the first time from my mother, and I was heady with the freedom of it and fell in love with place and independence.

Those loves remain.

My parents fell in love at Barcelona Beach, it could be argued, when they were just teenagers at Jamestown High School in the late 1930s. I see them in photos, full of youthful vigor, on the edge of falling in love and creating new life. No doubt they liked to return there, which is why we often stayed with the Bjorks or in their cottage or next door in another one. I’m not sure but I think we would stay for a week or so at a time, sleeping in rustic bunks, spiders visible on the bare wood walls, eating picnic foods at a wooden table outside — egg salad and potato salad, Jell-o and corn, hot dogs and Coca-Cola. Nights were full of sounds unheard of back in Jamestown, night birds, the rustling of trees above. The silences of night were just as profound as was the darkness there, deep and blue black.

Our parents Ray Johnson and Barbara Forsberg long before marriage, at Lake Erie in the 1930ís with an unnamed friend in the background. Our mother dressed in her gingham best, kerchief in her dark hair. Our father is looking on lovingly. Anyone could see, these two were falling in love. Photo from family archives.

In the days, we would walk a long path, mother warning of poison ivy on each side, a dirt path winding its way to the water through dense forest. When the trees moved in the great winds off Lake Erie, they rustled and moaned. They seemed alive to me then, a great forest of tree people. When we reached the beach, we stepped gingerly down wooden steps towards the tan sand, always damp to the foot, strewn with flat stones. And the water, Lake Erie itself, ever a dark Army green in my mind’s eye, awash with frothy waves, gravel under my toes. Dad taught me to swim there before I was four. “You can do it, Sandra!” he’d shout, full of his usual elan, gleeful with living. “Come on! Do that Johnny Weismueller crawl. Here’s how it goes!” And he would strike out across the water, strong and fearless. I admired him so much I followed suit, and eventually swimming became one of my best sports. It came easily to me, natural as walking. I had no fear of water or of being tossed by waves into the gravel bottom near shore.

It was a time of grace for us, years of beautiful days wherein my parents loved each other and all was well with the world. No wonder I look on the great green Lake Erie with affection to this day.

Last weekend, post-recovery from a recent illness, still weak, my sister Vicky and I drove to Westfield on a beautiful Saturday. The sun was golden-white; the sky was cloudless. We drove the old Plank Road from Hartfield like dad used to do, a road I recall so well from our trips there as children where our parents would be singing in the front seat songs we like Camptown Races, Moonlight Bay, Someone’s in the Kitchen with Dinah, songs that made us all laugh. Songs that lifted the heart. Our parents were still young and in love, full of joie de vivre, their light spirits engaging and wondrous to us.

At a certain point on that Plank Road, rolling past farms and meadows, dairy cows grazing, we topped the moraine and beheld a stunning view that always surprises me though I know it’s coming. Of a sudden, the horizon is all sky and then below it, all lake, stretched as far as the eye can see, all the way to Canada. It’s astonishing, really. This time we stopped. We thought of our dad who would have leapt out of the car at such a time and shouted something like, Get out and smell the grapes. Can you smell it? The harvest is in the wind. It’s the Canada wind blowing, girls, full of grapes growing.

In Westfield, we stopped at the First Presbyterian Church bazaar. Later, we strolled through the Farmers’ and Artisans’ Market in the park, where vendors of every type sold maple syrup, painted rocks, handcrafted rugs and jewelry, fresh produce. It made us think what a country we live in to experience such activity any given Saturday in the year in a fine little town nestled at the bottom of the moraine at the edge of a continent’s shore. People were bustling and friendly. Last town in North America! I could fairly hear my father saying with a smile.

First view of Lake Erie as drivers top the end moraine at Westfield and start down the hill on the Plank Road.

Later, we sat on a bench at Barcelona Beach where the water slapped the shore, where the view was flawless in an approaching autumn sky, where the wind did indeed smell like harvest coming blown by a great, sweet Canada breeze. All the way home we talked of our parents and our memories, buoyed by them. We were reminded of how lucky we were to be the children of those interesting people, those loving souls who shaped us and sent us on our way. Yes, dad, we are still in love with the world, we would say if we could.

For more information about activities in Westfield, go to the community calendar at https://westfieldny.com/calendar/month.

My granddaughter Cassidy on the Lake Erie shore, making her own memories.

Beach, water, sky with Canada on the other side.