My cousin, Rod Wilkerson was a college student during this time. That first summer he stayed at Havasu Palms, and worked for my parents. His parents, my Aunt Margaret and Uncle George Wilkerson, had purchased a travel trailer in the park, to use for holidays. Rod stayed in his parent’s trailer that summer, along with another summer employee named Tom, who was about the same age as Rod. It was a fun summer.
          We weren’t ready to implement any major improvements the first year.  Yet, we did paint the store for Easter. First, we gave the store a coat of muddy brown. My parents then gave us cans of colored paint, and let us use our imagination.  It was the sixties, so we covered the store with bright flowers and lopsided butterflies. 
          Sometime during that year, my father found an old jukebox stored in one of the sheds. It was a classic, made of wood. We put it on the store porch, filled it with our records, and my sister and I kept any money it generated.  It rarely made money, for my sister and I routinely opened the back of the box and flipped the levers, causing it to play all the songs.
            My mother and one of her dear friends, Aggie Cutting, kept the store open nights during the first few days of Easter week, registering the campers, which streamed in all night. Remember that final scene in the movie, Fields of Dreams, where headlights lined the road, making their way into the ballpark.  That’s what our first Easter vacation looked like at Havasu Palms.
           I remember how strange it was to wake up the first day of Easter vacation, and look over at the peninsula (which had been wide open and vacant the night before) and see it crammed with tents and campers, buzzing with life.
            The big difference between the crowds then and now is money.  Back then, there were small ski boats, nothing like the enormous boats on Lake Havasu today. People weren’t staying in fancy RV’s, expensive vacation rental houses or hotels. They were in tents and campers and it was wonderful fun. 
            Once we moved to Havasu Palms, Dad no longer had time to take us skiing, or to use the boat for recreation.  He managed to take an annual ski ride, doing a shore start off the docks. Other than that, it was mostly work.
            During the weekends and summer, my sister and I tended the store. During warmer months, we’d wear our bikinis so we could cool off in the lake.  My least favorite jobs were scooping up water dogs, counting night crawlers, or cutting 100-pound blocks of ice into four squares.

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Photo: Original Havasu Palms Store and Juke Box, circa 1968