When I was a child, the parade ground was our playground. The Long Branch army barracks on the shores of Lake Ontario near Toronto was changed into housing at the end of the Second World War. My twin sister and my brothers and I would run with all the other youngsters onto the green after supper on long summer evenings to play games. Most girls skipped rope while reciting endless rhymes or bounced balls against the wooden walls to complex chants. The boys played more organized team games. Many fathers would join in while the mothers enjoyed a quiet cup of tea sitting on the “stoop.”

Tucked into the upper edge of Washington State sits a Canadian colony owned and occupied by Okanagans where this serene scene is being relived. The settlement is called Veranda Beach. Driving south on Highway 97 to Osoyoos and crossing the border, my husband Jim and I continued five miles to Oroville, turned left on Center St., left on Cherry and continued left at the airport and found ourselves heading back towards Canada along the east side of Osoyoos Lake. The closer we came the more tranquil it became. We were interested in Veranda Beach because it’s owned by a Kelowna company and the staff we met were from the Kelowna area. Seventy percent of these “American” summer homes  are owned by Canadian and the majority of those are from B.C. which makes it a nice place to be, but for me the best part was that there were happy, energetic  kids playing games on the green or splashing in the lake. We seniors outnumber children here at home. Perhaps my enjoyment of the children at Veranda stems from longing for at least one grandchild. This scene of kids playing imaginatively sans iPod, cell phone or computer game was especially enjoyable.
This Washington retreat has several hundred cottages and a thousand residents with lots of laughter, bins of sports equipment, large inflated diving platforms with slides, volleyball pits and lovely wrap-around enclosed verandas (hence the name) with room to spare if all my brothers and my twin showed up at once. Granted these summers are in a very different league than my family’s temporary post war home for these are the homes of the privileged who can afford a half-million dollar summer residences and all the toys that go with them. And why not? Veranda Beach is an enchanting community with a mile of shoreline on Canada’s warmest water, the same water that continues into the U.S. and eventually adds a trickle of warmth to the icy Columbia River. It was a lovely overnight stay (rentals are encouraged). I drank my tea and watched the kids play. In the evening, pyjama-clad they watched a movie projected onto an inflated screen on a big grassy square. Shades and memories of lovely times past.