so i decided to head up to wolf lake again with my good buddy chad from kzoo. all ive been thinking about is throwing a frisby in waist high warm water for the past two weeks with an ice cold beverage in the other hand.... so i couldnt pass it up! well long story short just as we get on M10 (i believe) headed to wolf lake, just west of 131, we notice a van pull over smoking a little from the hood. im on the phone with and contemplainting whether we should pull over or not.. so finally we pull over and run over to the driver.. shes just getting out of the van with her daughter still strapped in the smoking-about to be ingulf in 15 foot flames, van. we look under the car and see gooey black stuff dropping from the engine bay to the ground on fire. so we immediately get them to the other side of the road to safety.. we than flag down the next group of cars pulling boats.. the one guy grabs his fire extingusiher and we try to put it out from under the car.. but it didnt phase the . . . Read More..

I was so young when my Brother, father, my uncle Kirt and his sons Noel and Kevin would go out to rifle river every year. These were some of the most memorable summer weekends of my childhood. I basically am going to merge all of my memories combined into one post.



One of the first memories that I will never forget was the time it was raining out and all of us 4 kids were stuck inside playing old maid. We bought this cool old maid deck at a local party store and I specifically remember buying a johnny appleseed piece of gum too (I dont know why I remember that). Anyways so we were playing this game and everything was good until there was some kind of conflict. It just so happened that the Old Maid had a marking on it and everyone caught on not to take the one thats marked. We all faught about it and were at that age where you get emotional about things like that (especially if you had the old maid). This . . . Read More..

I remember playing "Zombie Tag" with my brother, my cousins Dan (dan10878) and Dave ( TheMemoryCrawler) and my childhood friends John and Derek Conrad. It was kind of a mix between"tag" and "hide-and-go-seek". Zombie Tag could only be played at night. One person was "it" at first. Everyone else hid. The person who was it was only allowed to walk because Zombies can't run. (But really they only had to walk when no one was looking). Being "it" really sucked in Zombie Tag since it was dark and everyone else was hiding in a large forest and you could only walk. The people who were hiding were allowed to move around too. They could yell out to the others to notify them that the Zombie was coming.

However, if a Zombie was able to sneak up and "tag" someone, then there were two Zombies. We would play this way until there was only one person left and he/she was the winner. It was a lot easier to catch people when there was more than one Zombie.

I loved those nights, hiding behind a tree . . . Read More..

I remember it was one of the first Rifle River trips for me.  There were some older kids there (probably teenagers at the time) and one of them in particular was a troublemaker.  I remember that he said that he was part of a gang from Chicago and that they were a national gang, terrible and powerful.  This had a fearful effect on me.  I remember it being one of the first times I had heard about such a gang.  I am not certain, but now I know that teenagers say a lot of silly things like that to make them feel important and validate themselves.  I know the guy's father and the kid is probably just a spoiled suburbanite.  But still, as a kid I remember feeling pretty inimidated.

The Rifle River events were primarily intended as a father/son venture. However, I remember that there was one girl there. She was younger than me and I think her name was Maureen. She was there with her father and brother. I can understand why her father brought her along. I have a daughter and I would want to do the same. I just remember my younger brother Kevin having the "hots" for this girl. They would often play in the river together with their innretubes. I'm not sure if he ever kissed her. He would look forward to seeing her there every summer and I remember him being disappointed on the years when she did not show. Kevin always had his game on with the ladies. I was a little slow to start on that.