Mennonite Children at Play

With our planned backpack trip suddenly cancelled, it turned out that my husband and I had all day Friday's schedule free. We decided on the spur of the moment to go swimming one last time at Canoe Creek State Park, not far from Altoona. The beach there closes after this weekend.

When we arrived there, we discovered that two buses had brought Mennonite children to the park, and there were groups of them engaged in lively games of volleyball. Another, smaller group played on the playground equipment.

The children were very active and exuberant, but very organized, and I admired the discipline they seemed to follow. The groups moved from place to place in an orderly fashion, and when it was time to go, they trooped out to the buses and quickly disappeared, leaving silence behind them.

For a long time after that, my husband and I were the only ones left in the park, aside from three kayakers on the lake. It was like we were in our own private resort, with a whole lake of our very own for swimming. And so we did.

The soundtrack song is for the children: Crosby, Stills & Nash, with Teach Your Children Well.