Lunch ala rock

Make the best of what ya have on hand.

Lunch ala rock

The sunshine was abundant and a gentle breeze blew across Lake Michigan. We had been camping along its peaceful shoreline for several days now. The lake was calm and glistened with the July sun. This particular morning we decided we would take a hike up the shoreline.

 

Mom packed the fixin’s for sandwiches into my dad’s old military knap sack. She then placed fresh cut carrot sticks and celery sticks into small Tupperware containers. She also placed some Jell-O salad into the knap sack. Dad cleaned out the thermos and made some Kool-Aid.

 

My brother, Mark and I put on our swimsuits and collected our beach towels from the line. Then we rounded up some small containers to place our beach treasures in.

 

By 10:00, the four of us had set off down the beach for our hike. As we walked along the shoreline, my brother and I looked for beach glass, special looking stones and driftwood.

 

We found beach glass in many shapes and sizes. Most of this glass was amber brown in color, which my father explained was most likely  from broken beer bottles. We also found several pieces of opaque white glass. Our parent explain how the water and the sand had worn the glass into the smooth, opaque, almost pebble like objects we now held.

After hiking up the shoreline for several hours, we stopped to have some lunch. We climbed upon some large boulders along the edge of the tree line to sit in the shade an enjoy lunch.

This is when we discovered we had not packed any plates to have lunch on. With out any hesitation my dad jumped back down from atop the rock and began searching around the edges of these large slate stones. After several minutes he carried four plate sized, flat pieces of slate stone to the waters edge. After scrubbing each one in the water with the sand, he returned to where we sat.

Taking the paper towels out of the knap sack, he wrapped one around each stone. Then mom placed our sandwiches, veggies, and salad onto of nature’s plates.

Mark and I were able to hold  lunch in our laps as we ate. The sandwiches and the veggies were no challenge. However,

the Jell-O salad did stick to the paper toweling a bit. Nevertheless, we were able to clean most of it off the paper covering on our slate plates. This was one day were it was acceptable to not completely clean ones plate.

I can remember thinking; wow, my dad is the coolest. Who would ever thought to use slate rock for plates? How did he know to use the water and the sand to clean the moss and little critters off them?

Once again, our parents had shown us how to make the best of what was available. At nine years of age, I thought my dad was nine feet tall and had all the answers. To this day, fourty-five years later, I’d have to admit he may not be nine feet tall but he sure has many of the answers.

Life lesson learned, just because you don’t have exactly what you think you need doesn’t mean that the whole day needs to be ruined. Look around you, all your need is close at hand. You just need to have an open mind to look for an alternative and then try it.