something to look forward to, seeing all of the other family's greet you, the madness of the train station, and the smells of the wilderness. All of those things were gone, replace by motor boats that would wake you up in the middle of a summer slumber.Lastly the father brings up the thunderstorm. To me this represents the "birth" of a new him. I say this because once the rain clears up and the dark skies disappear, he begins to look at his son, and the entire trip in a different light. He forgets the years of old, and realizes that he is not his son, he stops trying to live his life through his son's eyes. When at the end he feel the cold chill of death at his groin, I feel this is him letting the trip be just a trip, not pushing his son to do exactly what he once did. He lets the boy do what he wants, not do what the father had done all those years down by the lake....
