What child is this?

My husband, Edwin Smith-Standish and I have returned from putting our vacation lodge in upstate New York to bed for the for the year and we had such a lovely time on the drive up and back.

S&S Lodge, as we call it. is nestled above Lake Owasco, and is a sprawling compound of cabins, each one with a view of something - be it the brilliant blue sky, or the deep green of the forest. S&S Lodge has been in the family for many years.  It belonged to Edwin's grandfather and then his father.  Our children and their children have use of the compound for a mere $50 per night.  You are thinking "they charge their own family members?" and to that I say yes, we do.  Not because we need the money, but because it teaches responsibility and reminds them all good things in life cost money.

"Nothing in life is free", is the Smith-Standish Family Motto.  None of our children has an entitled bone in their body and I defy anyone to say that they do.

Since it is so close to Cornell, where our grand daughter Brittany Smith-Standish attends school, we had let her use S&S Lodge as a getaway during the scorching hot days during summer term (for $50 a night).  Brittany was an A+ student at Hathaway Brown, so we figured that she had shown sufficient growth to handle the responsibility of being at the camp.

So imagine our disappointment when we found a nearly empty box of canned beer in the Sub Zero.

And it just wasn't any beer, but something called "Natural Lite". We were shocked!

When a Smith-Standish enjoys a fine beer it is a stout, or an ale.  But this yellow water? Piffle!

Can you imagine being able to spend time in of the most beautiful private camps in all of upstate New York, breathing the fine air, reveling in the filtered sunlight of an August afternoon and then, when the cocktail hour rings, knocking back a can of "Natural Lite"? 

Worse yet it appears that she (and her company) didn't even pour their beer into a frosty mug, but drank from the cans(!) that they just tossed in the trash.

We also found scattered about other items, which must have belonged to her girlfriends.  Yet, we cannot explain the mens underwear under the bed in the Hut Sut Cabin that Brittany so enjoys stayingwhen she comes to visit here.

What child is this? Who are his people?

And we found this picture (see above) of a sleepy young man (his face is blocked is blocked by something) with his first raised in a protestive gesture.  I am quite sure that his parents didn't raise him to make such crude gestures.  So I told Edwin that when we see Brittany this weekend we will just have to get to the bottom of this, or no more use of the lodge if these antics continue!

Well, Edwin and I are off to Cleveland Hopkins to catch our flight back east for the Labor Day Weekend.  If anything should come about, I will be sure to share it with you.

I hope you holiday weekend is a festive one!

I remain,

Mrs. Edwin Smith-Standish