A Parallel Universe

This is "the Cottage" - my grandparents house for the entire time I knew they had one. They lived in this house on the lake during frigid, stinging winters and the most oppressively humid summers.
The cottage rested on the shore of a man-made lake in Central Michigan. Poplar leaves blowing in the wind made a sound unlike any other tree. It is still the singular sound I associate with the cottage.
The nearest town was eight miles away and consisted of one traffic light, a police slash city government building, a library, a beauty shop, two pharmacies, a general store, a laundromat, a dime store, a soft-serve, a lumber yard and a tiny municipal airport. The only other two significant buildings had special names, The Eat and The Products.
The Cottage was a summer home that just happened to be occupied year-round. It really had a life of it's own and existed on a parallel plane with the city house I grew up in. The city house downstate was where business was conducted. People were serious, life was controlled (to the extent that two dysfunctional parents can execute anything resembling control). Adults did work and made plans to escape. At the cottage, the world opened up. The only important plan was to get through lunch without one of the dogs stealing the food off your plate. A big job when you're a tiny girl and the dogs out number you twelve to one but not one that was ever restricted to only include children. Everyone's plate was fair game. The loss of your food stung significantly more at the cottage than it did at our city house because the food was better - edible. There were store bought cookies, sugary cereals, HillBilly bread, Heinz Ketchup and steaks on the grill. My grandfather didn't buy "those bastard brands." It was the surprise at finding self-worth painted so plainly, clearly and without the slightest thought to personal humility - in such an unseemly place that made this other world so different than the one I lived in most times.
In the city, we had poor homemade cookies my Mom liked better burned. At least that was how she justified her resignation, homemade bread (half frozen, half thawed and soggy) homemade ketchup (don't ask) and hamburger gravy (again, too gruesome to relive in script) they were all good enough.

I had a dream when I was little that one of the dogs, the patriarch of the pack, bit my hand off and was chasing me in circles around the small living room while everyone else was just sitting on the couches like my dismemberment was nothing more astonishing than 'Archie Bunker.' I suppose having the food stolen off your plate or out of your hand (even with your hand attached) was no great cause for alarm. As well, the dogs were always given more while I usually chose to abandon myself to the park to sulk on the swings.
My brother and I made up a game called, "Bomb the Japs" to get back at them. As we pumped our little legs to reach so high that the swings chains began to sag and snap at the top of our hyperbola, we aimed our imaginary automatic machine guns at anything that moved. Typically it would be one or several of the unleashed, skunk scented dogs.
Our parents left us alone in the park until dusk - when they wanted to go to bed. We rushed home to fill our beds with the sand that clung to our feet and sleep until the next battle.