I do not recall when we started going down to the cabin. Sometime early in eleventh grade. It was our (my sister and myself) friends’ place. Or, I suppose, his older brothers as L actually lived in the cabin… We just invaded it on most Friday nights. Sometimes on Saturdays, but usually, we were all recovering from Friday’s shenanigans.

They were the brothers Bradley. Technically, there were four of them, but we knew the three of them. L was the oldest, then C, then V. They were all named Joseph (good Catholics), but all went by their second names (which I’ve opted to use their first initials). Close as brothers are, fought like brothers, and found trouble, like brothers. They all drank too much, womanized too much, but were good boys. and we had a lot (too much) fun, down at the cabin.

The typical night started with a run to the liquor store. As, I’m not sure how it is in other towns, but where I grew up, there were only a few things to do.

1. Drink
2. Drugs
3. Have sex

That was it. While we weren’t far from the city, most of us didn’t have enough money to do anything in the city. This was the very early 1990s. We were in the middle of a very bad recession. Jobs were non-existent for most high school kids. I babysat pretty regularly and that was a good gig at $3/hour! Some nights, I’d make $20 to $30! That would buy me a 2-6 of rye and mix. That, friends, would be enough for my sister and I to share on a Friday night at the cabin!

So, what did we do, besides drink?

Cards. Lots of card playing! Hand after hand of Asshole and Mexican Poker. I’m sure there were others, but those are the two I remember most often. Lots of talking, lots of laughing. Flirting. Teasing. Shenanigans. The cabin had two bedrooms and one bathroom. The bathroom was weird. I remember it being to the left of the entrance.

I remember one night, my sister and our best friend, A, drinking a little too much and they passed out on the bathroom floor. I also remember the guys saying “Nope.” and wandering in and going anyway, with them passed out on the floor. No one was too shy in that group.

There were bodies strewn everywhere. Probably 10 to 12 of us stayed over on any night. The boys’ parents never had an issue with any of us staying over. C & V went up to their rooms in the main house. L stayed in his. My sister and her boyfriend went to the spare room, as I think my sister’s boyfriend was living in the cabin at the time. Plus, they were really the only official couple. Sometimes I bunked with L… As I was ‘seeing’ him for a while (at least on the weekends). Everyone said I was really good for him. But L was a heavy drinker. I didn’t need that.

We spent, it seemed, endless Fridays down at the cabin. They were good times. There was no talk of futures, just the now. The moments we were living. The times we were existing in. And times existential. The world at large and how we might change it. Of course, this is where some of us were on opposite sides of the fence.

We decided to stick to what we knew. Cards and drinking. The things important to the teenage mind! Time goes by and change. The year passed and people moved on. Some of the crew graduated or finished grade twelve and entered the next stage of life.

The band broke up, so to speak. It is hard to keep things the same, life is an ever-evolving thing and we moved on. Friday nights at the cabin were no more, it had run its course, and it was time to move on to the next great thing. Whatever that may be. I know for me; it involved drinking considerably less rye! It was fun to think of the times spent down there. I wonder if the boys’ parents still own their place by the lake? If the cabin is still there? I would like to think it is a piece of time that stood still. A happy little memory.