Naples, N.Y. 1978. (Pt.4)

The next day, a woman came to visit Tommy's step-grandmother. I'm kind fuzzy on this, but I think she was the ex-wife of the step-brother who lived in Texas. She had 3 kids with her - the step-grandmother's great-grandchildren. (Phew!) This woman, who was probably in her late 20s, seemed really mature to us. She took us all down to Lake Canandaigua to go swimming. I remember her talking about the heat wave they were having, even though it was only about 80 degrees. When we left N.C., it had been in the mid-nineties.
The lake was so large that it had small waves. We all ran off of the end of a little dock and jumped into the water. We had a great time. Tommy's ex-step-sister-in-law was cool. He told her that he had lost a joint at his grandmother's. She thought it would be hilarious if the grandmother found it.
While we played around in the water, she talked about her boyfriend's cabin, somewhere in the mountains. She said he had named it the "Wizard Lodge." As we were into Tolkien, we thought that was awesome. She told us that she had a little covert project that she needed some assistance with. Would we help her? Sure.
There was a golf course nearby that used a butterfly as their logo. All along the road to the lake, there were brightly colored metal signs, cut out in the shape of butterflies, as if to say, "This way to the golf course." Tommy's ex-step-sister-in-law wanted one of these for her boyfriend's cabin. Later that night, we went with her to snag a sign. We worked it out of the ground and threw it in the trunk of her car - post and all. I told her her boyfriend should re-name his lodge, "Iron Butterfly."
I remember her asking, in the car, how long we had known each other. Tommy told her that we had been best friends since the 5th grade. She thought it was extremely cool that we had stuck by each other all those years.