It was just simple summer home,
Nothing fancy, really.
Water with a slightly odd taste,
And furniture with a distinctly "coastal" flair.
We called it "fish camp"
As an affectionate reminder that of the houses on the street,
It was the simplest, the plainest.
Meant to be lived in only for short times.
Not far from Harker's Island,
The sound became my playground.
My mother would play with me on the sound's gentle shallows,
While my father and grandfather would fish.
Even after my grandfather remarried,
And moved into his new wife's home
(A permanent residence down the street from our beloved fish camp),
Fish camp stayed in the family.
Now, our fish camp is ours no longer.
No longer is fish camp of the McMullan clan.
It belongs to another
Whose name I do not know.
What I would not give to be there again,
Now that I am older, hopefully wiser
More attuned to the rich history of the sound,
Of its waters, of its places, of its people.
What I would not give
To learn the waters of the sound
To learn the shallows and the tides
To sail with my grandfather again.
And, at the end of the day, to come home to
the fish camp at Straits.
