I jam my bare feet into my fraying, cracked rubber boots. The same ones I’ve had for years – old faithfuls – that have been protecting me from the onslaught of leeches found lurking just below the waterline. Nothing is more horrible than to have to pull one of these savage parasites from my skin so for protection, I have taken to wearing knee high rubber boots to thwart vampyric attacks.

I am 10 years old.

It’s the summer of 1975 and I have just been paid my allowance of $0.25 which I jam into my frayed jean cut offs’ pocket. With the influx of cash I, and next-cottage neighbour, Randy, decide to travel to the nearest store, approximately a mile away from our summer homes, to purchase high fructose treats. It’s not really a store, it’s actually a tuck shop for a campground/trailer park, but it’s the only place we can go shopping without a car ride or parental supervision.

Ten years old and I’m ready to shop like it’s Sex and the City.

The first leg of our journey is through a massive swamp. Massive to me, at ten years old. We climb over the rotting cow fence behind my cottage and we’re away, into marshy ground and past downed evergreen trees. There is a slight path we follow, forged from other kids that cut across our collective lots along the lakefront. But in the swamp, the ground trail becomes fuzzy, the only markers are holes in above ground foliage. My boots sink into the ground and water overflows into them.

Dragonflies light on sticks. The sun is blotted out by the tall trees that rise up from the swamp, branchless until the leafy canopy high above us. We chat about making a fort in the back woods, about going for a swim later, about

HOLY SHIT A SNAKE!

We hoof it. My boots nearly stay in the swamp but I manage to curl toe and keep them on my feet, despite having a litre of water in each. Water and muck can’t keep us in the swamp’s dirty grasp when it comes to snakes. Oddly enough I no longer fear them, though I choose not to imagine what it would feel like to be bit by one.

We come out on the other side of the swamp to our next obstacle: the dangerous cut through, across a cottage lot that echoes games played against Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird. I never knew the owners, never saw anyone on the lot or in the house, but Randy insisted that they were heinous and needed to be avoided. Going around their lot wasn’t an option – it would mean walking a mile up to the county road and back down to the shop, adding hours to our sugar journey. I empty my boots of water and watch as Randy scoots across the yard, using lawn furniture and old tire planters as cover.

I just run straight across.

The rest of the trip is free and clear. We walk in the summer sun talking about what treasures we will find, having slayed the unseen Kraken, survived the seven tasks, found the golden fleece, etc.

The store is dark and cool and full of fresh product.  I purchase Bottle Caps, Lix a Stix (a candy stick you lick, then stick into a Kool Aid powder – duh!) and a bottle of orange Fanta. I jam a dime into the humming vending machine, open the thin glass door and pull on the bottle neck to make the machine release the sugary syrup drink. I wrench off the bottle top (non-candy, non-edible) and insert a straw. Which promptly falls into the bottle and with less than half a centimetre for my lips to grapple it, ensures that I won’t drink the entire thing on the way home.

But I do anyway.