When I was 7½, I had my best family vacation. There were later good and memorable trips, like to Lake Arrowhead where I remember rising early with Steve and fishing with American cheese for bait, or the time we hauled a fold-out trailer behind our white Corvair, struggling up Tioga Pass to Tuolomne Meadows, coping with the nose bleed Andy suffered as soon as we reached ten thousand feet. There were annual trips, usually somewhat rustic, but the one to New Hampshire in 1957 impressed me the most.

We were part of a new demographic group – Jewish campers. Our family was headed by a Jewish mechanical engineer (almost an oxymoron), and my parents (the children of immigrants who made homes in Manhattan and Brooklyn) were settlers in the suburbs who would soon move to the west coast.

It was an eight hour drive from our house in Glen Cove to the cabin we rented on the shore of the New Hampshire lake. We vacationed with the Weisbins: Roz and Jack and their son Jimmy who was my age and their daughter Randy who was Steve’s. The thing I didn’t notice then and am very struck with now? Our parents, who were happy and silly but very in charge, were then in their early 30s.

Dad and Jack drank beer together: Pabst Blue Ribbon. They and the mothers had cocktails in the evening. They had private jokes and we were included even if we didn’t understand. Most were inspired by billboards we read on the long drive up (Hungry, Brother? Eat!).

Each family had a little painted wooden cabin. All cabins had boardwalks to the dock over the lake water.

Lake Winnepesaukee is not huge, but I remember being told that it’s the largest lake contained within one state in the US. It had a boulder floor. No matter how many swimmers or boats it hosted, its mud stayed on the bottom and its water stayed clear.

What I remember best about that vacation was the exquisite sense of freedom I enjoyed, for I was able to swim underwater, eyes open and astounded by the view, just about whenever I wished.

I also got my first burn there. Not from sun: from a hot potato. My mother applied butter to the injury, which we now know is not the right response (ice ice ice). My finger was potato-coated and then buttered, like it was edible.

All four parents agreed that we’d return the next year, but then both families had babies and changed plans.