Before childhood came with screens, schedules, and constant supervision, there was summer.

For me, summer meant Terrace Pines Campground, tucked into the Ossipee Mountains of New Hampshire. It meant long days on Dan Hole Pond, bicycles, campfires, penny candy, questionable decisions, and the kind of freedom that would probably terrify parents today.

We disappeared in the morning and came back when we were hungry. We explored the woods, swam until our fingers wrinkled, rode our bikes wherever they would take us, and learned about life largely by living it.

Those summers left behind stories.

Stories of Saturday beer runs in the back of a station wagon. Of discovering Tolkien and suddenly finding a world even bigger than the mountains around me. Of campground characters, family adventures, and childhood schemes that seemed perfectly reasonable at the time. Of the strange annual ritual of Spray Day, when DDT drifted through the campground while kids carried on playing beneath it.

There are quieter memories, too. A small country store. Toasted marshmallows around a fire. A bicycle that represented freedom. Days when Dan Hole Pond seemed like the center of the universe. And there are darker stories. Tragedy on the lake. Moments that a child witnessed but could only understand years later. Reminders that even the most idyllic childhood landscapes have shadows.

Growing Up North is about family, friendship, freedom, growing up, and the strange way ordinary moments become extraordinary once enough years have passed.

Terrace Pines was our summer home, our playground, and sometimes our entire world.

This is the story of growing up north.