Snapshots of Wawasee

Moments for a summer on the lake from a kids point of view

 

Snapshots of Wawasee

 

by

 

Jon McDonald

 

 

            The closed up cabin smelled of moth balls and mildew.  Dad threw open the windows to air out the place, making sure the screens were snugly fastened; while Mom took a broom to the cobwebs hidden in the corners of the pantry, cupboards and even the rafters of the front porch.  My brother and I raced through the cabin, flinging open the screen door facing the lake, and tore down to the pier, throwing ourselves on the end of dock and peered into the mysterious green lapping water looking for minnows and monsters.

            My brother was five and I was ten.  Not quite close enough in age to be buddies, but not so far apart, either, that we couldn’t still play together when there was no one else around.

            The family summer cottage on Lake Wawasee in northern Indiana was being opened up for the fist time this season.  The last of the family to visit the cottage was Aunt Clara and her brood for a week in October.  But there was no fireplace, no furnace and no insulation, so it had not been used over the winter.  It was definitely a “summer” cottage.

            Mom, my brother, Tom, and I were to be here for the entire summer, but Dad could only get away for a two week vacation in July.  He had come up with us this Memorial Day weekend to help open up the cabin but would be driving back to Muncie Monday night.

            The Grandparents and various other clans of Aunts, Uncles and cousins would appear at pre-scheduled times during the summer for their annual one or two week vacations, but this year it was our turn to be custodians of the cottage for the entire summer.  This privilege rotated through the family so we got to do this only once every five years or so.  We would be here till school started after Labor Day.

            Mom was pleased to be at the lake for the whole summer, but was also horrified by the prospect of spending three months under the most primitive conditions.  The kitchen was used mostly for making toast in a toaster so old it buzzed; heating up cans of soup and keeping freshly caught fish alive in the sink filled with water till ready to be cleaned.  That was Dad’s idea, not Mom’s.  The oven predated Columbus.  The only really serious cooking utensil was the cast iron frying pan used to get a nice golden crispy crust on the Crappies that my brother and I were compelled to clean.  It was our job to scale and gut them on an old bench in the back yard used only for that purpose. It reeked pretty bad by late August, believe me.  And have you ever seen a five year old scaling fish?  Scales flew everywhere like gravel in a high speed chase down a dirt road. He had the nicer job though.  I had to cut off their heads, de-fin them, and remove the guts into a bucket that we emptied out at the end of the dock.  I never understood why we did that, as we had to swim there, but Dad insisted it was a form of giving back to nature and would fatten the other fish, ready to be caught by us at a later date.  We never got into the delicate subject of whether fish were cannibals or not.  However, it was my guess that mom just didn’t want the smelly fish parts left to stew in the garbage can out back.  Trash was only picked up once a week by Mr. Davies in his chugging pick-up surrounded by a plague of flies.

            The cabin was so basic that the walls of the interior rooms didn’t even go up to the pitched roof.  There were no ceilings. The bedrooms were just partitions; each with a couple of sagging spring beds with mattresses so old and dirty you could plant seeds in them and get a functioning garden.  There were no closets, only a couple of beat up old dressers with mismatched drawers, covered in scratches and rings where cold pop bottles had been left.  The only privacy was provided by the most basic of bathrooms �" a small cracked and rusted sink, a john and a shower stall that smelled of mildew and caustic soap.  Shampoo bottles lined the sill of the only window, and that was actually in the shower itself. 

            And, oh yeah, my name is Skippy �" well Sebastian really, but you can guess why I’m called Skippy with a name like that.  I was named after some dead uncle or somebody that died in some foreign war somewhere.  Go figure.  And I’m the one who gets stuck with it.  Geesh.

            A-a-a-nyway, mom was now busy unpacking our suitcases and putting our tee-shirts, shorts and underwear in the dresser in Tom’s and my room.  Who needs anything more?  Right?  Dad was unloading the boxes of food from the car.  We brought as many groceries as we could from home because the nearest real grocery store was w-a-a-y across the lake �" a long, slow boat ride away - and mom would not have use of the car, as Dad needed to drive it home and use it for work.  The only other source for things like extra milk and sugar and stuff was a gas station just down the road with a small family pick-up grocery and a bait shop attached.  But they did have one thing much prized by our family, and especially me �" Bismarcks.  But more about them later.

            When we had finally settled in, it was lunch time and Mom got out the Wonder bread, baloney, American singles and iceberg lettuce and began making sandwiches.  Dad was already down at the pier attaching the Evinrude to the back of the row boat - we kept the motor in a locked shed at the side of the cottage during the winter.  He tried to get it to start but it just sputtered and coughed blue smoke,

            “God damn it!” Dad bellowed, and threw a wrench into the bottom of the boat.

            Mom looked up from her sandwich making and stared out the kitchen window.

            Dad kicked the side of the boat and stormed along the pier, past where I was reading to Tom in the bench swing, and to the shed where he rummaged around for more tools and the gas can.  He careened back to the pier, muttering, and proceeded to attack the outboard motor once again.  I looked over at Mom in the window.  Her head was bowed but she looked up and caught my eye and looked away again quickly.  Tom squirmed down from the swing and ran into the cottage.

            I walked over to the pier and stood by the boat, watching.  “When we goin’ fishin’?” I finally spoke up.

            “When I get this son-a-b***h going, is when.”

            “What’s wrong with it?” I stooped and peered into the boat to look like I might be interested.

            “Sat too long.  Gas has probably gone stale on me. Gotta drain the damn thing and start over.”

            “Me and mom could go get some fresh gas if you want.”

            He didn’t answer but shook his head and unscrewed the fuel line and let it drain into an old Folgers can.

            “Hey guys, lunch is ready.” Mom called from the cabin.

            Dad looked up at me and indicated I should go on up by nodding his head towards the cabin.

            Mom had the sandwiches cut on the diagonal and laid out with a spear of dill pickle on plates that didn’t match, a big opened bag of potato chips laying flat on the table, and bottles of Nehi.  “Your dad comin’?” She asked as she handed out the paper napkins.

            “I don’t think he’s too happy just now.”  I understated.  “You might just want to take his sandwich out to him.”

            The corners of Mom’s mouth crinkled in that way she has when she’s worried.

            “I’ll take it.”  I offered, and picked up the plate and soda before she could answer and dashed out.  I came running back with the empty gas can. 

            “Dad asks if we could go down to Friedrich’s after lunch and get some more gas?”

            “Sure.”  She was looking in the refrigerator. 

            I knew she was already thinking about what to fix for dinner.  Too bad it was still so early in the season, for later the roadside stands would be flush with sweet corn, cucumbers, tomatoes and watermelons.  But tonight we would probably end up with a greasy ground beef, tomato, macaroni and cheese casserole with a side of tasteless canned green beans.  Hmmm.

            “You and Tom finish up your sandwiches then we’ll go. 

            Tom and I climbed into the back seat of the Buick and Mom started the car.  As we drove down the dirt road behind the row of cottages along the lakefront, I could see sweat on the back of her neck.  She reached up and dabbed at it with the delicate little handkerchief she always kept tucked into her sleeve.  I wanted to cry.

*      *      *

            Grandad sat in the anchored boat watching the bobber flirt with the ripples on the lake. It was drizzling and the fish were not biting.  He had on a massive slicker and a cloth hat that drooped as the water dripped off the brim.  He looked like a small hunched mountain.

            “Can we go back now?” I asked, as miserable as the poor little Sunfish flopping in a puddle on the bottom of the boat, wide eyed, its mouth opening and closing, silently crying out for rescue.

            “Are you kidding?  This is the very best kind of fishin’ weather.”

            “Then how come this is all we got?”  I poked the little fish with the toe of my soaked through sneaker.

            “Don’t be such a sissy, Skip.  A little rain never hurt anyone.”  He reeled in his line, checked the bait and hurled it back out again as though he was casting for Marlin.

            I sighed, and watched a night crawler struggle to bury itself deeper into the bait can.

*      *      *

            Grandma was always the first one up.  We used to love the homemade doughnuts she made on Sunday mornings when we visited the grandparent’s house.  But at the lake she might make them any day of the week.  We could always tell when that was because we could hear her trying so hard not to make any noise in the kitchen.  She always brought her own pots and pans and boxes of supplies as everything here was inadequate according to her. But the quieter she was, the more we strained to hear everything she did.  We knew the routine and sensed just when to get up, knowing that the doughnuts would be warm and ready in their sugar coats.

            Today, however, it was completely quiet.  I scrambled out of bed, pulled on my tee-shirt and shorts and dashed out to the kitchen.  It was empty.  I looked outside and saw Grandma in the swing contemplating the rising sun, low over the lake �" head raised, her hair bobby pinned up high like a comfortable nest, with a shawl wrapped round her shoulders.

            I plopped down in the swing next to her.

            “So there you are.” She smiled.

            We watched silently as one lone fisherman, way out on the lake, rowed his boat through a patch of mist that was already beginning to evaporate as the sun struck the lake over the tops of the trees.

            I looked up at Grandma with a query that roared doughnuts.

            She laughed.  “I know what you’re thinking.  But I have another idea for us this morning.  Come.”  She took me back to the cabin, and retrieving her purse led me back outside again towards the dirt road.  I knew where she was taking me and I danced on ahead.  I waved to the milkman just turning into our road.  Friedrich’s was now within sight.  And as we neared I ran on ahead and flung open the screen door.

            “Ah der you are, young man.  Vat vill it be today, as if I couldn’t know.  Ya?” Frau Friedrich began filling a bag with a baker’s dozen of assorted Bismarcks - pillow soft German pastries filled with custard, jelly or chocolate.  She took a shaker of powdered sugar and shook it into the bag.  “Zay are still varm.  You like zat, ya?”  She laughed and handed me the warm bag.  I held them close to me and breathed in the yeasty aroma.

            “Grandma will pay.”  I announced as I flew out, slamming the screen door behind me.  Frau Friedrich laughed, shaking like the custard in one of her delicious delicacies.

*      *      *

            Tom and I sat at the end of the pier.  Our legs were too short to reach the water, but we could hear it lapping against the rocking boat tied securely to the pier as the waves from a passing motor boat finally washed up to touch our shore.  It was the evening of the 4^th of July.  We had finished our grilled burgers and hot dogs earlier.  Aunt Mattie had made her wonderful dilled potato salad, and Tom and I were spitting seeds into the lake as we finished off our crescent moons of watermelon.  We had long ago exhausted what Dad considered our ‘safe’ fireworks �" sparklers, fountains and glow worms. And now we watched in silence as the more treacherous fireworks erupted around the lake, and we would hear the boom, Boom, BOOM as the sound followed several seconds after the flash of the exploding rockets in the distance.  Tom would squirm, giggle and clap at the best displays.  Of course I had seen many fireworks events before and was way beyond the need of such overt expression; except for the occasional o-o-oh and a-a-h.

            Fortunately there weren’t too many mosquitoes at this end of the lake, but we did have an abundance of fireflies which were floating in the dusk and just now beginning to wink above the dewy lawn.  Aunt Mattie, Uncle John and their nasty kids were taking the remains of the dinner inside. 

            “Come on.”  I said, grabbing Tom by the hand and lifting him up from the pier.  We raced back to the house and I scavenged under the kitchen sink and retrieved an empty mayonnaise jar.  I used a hammer and nail to poke air holes in the lid and rushed back outside. 

            “Come on Tom, let’s catch us some bugs.”

            We raced around the lawn snatching fireflies in our hands and carefully slipping them into the jar without letting the others escape.  Our cousins, Teddy and Thelma �" I called them the Two Terrible T’s - soon appeared with their own jar and entered into fierce competition trying to capture more fireflies than we did.  I grabbed Tom and we raced round to the front of the cabin where there were more trees which the fireflies seemed to like.  They floated above the lawn like greenish-yellow Asian lanterns celebrating a summer festival.  Our jar began to fill with light.  When you held several bugs in your hands they both glowed and tickled as their wings fluttered against your palms.  It was hard getting them in the jar without all the others spilling out.  Tom dropped the lid when he was putting some in and about half escaped.  He let out a squeal and batted at his face as a cloud of light fluttered around his head.  I, of course, had to work extra hard now and redouble my efforts to catch up to where we were before in total numbers.  We couldn’t let the Two Terrible T’s win now, could we?           

            “Skippy.  Tom.  Time to come in.  It’s way past your bedtime.  Teddy and Thelma are already getting ready for bed.”  Mom called from the porch.

            “But I’m older.  I don’t have to go to bed so early.”  I pleaded.  “It’s not even nine yet.  I don’t have to be in bed till nine-thirty.”

            “I need you to set an example for the others tonight, Skippy.  You’ve gotten yourselves all worked up this evening and it’s going to be ages before you kids settle down as it is.”

            “Aw Mom….”

            “Don’t make me have to call your father….”

            “Come on Tommy.”  I took his hand and led him up the steps to the cabin.

            Thelma and Teddy had to share our bedroom.  As the eldest, I was expected to do my part, and sleep on a beat-up spare mattress on the floor.  It was hard and lumpy and the bedroom was close.  I couldn’t get to sleep.  Thelma talked in her sleep.  Tommy still sucked his thumb and was making a disgusting slurping noise.  I was about to get up and drag my mattress outside to the pier where it would be cooler, and where the only sound would be the gentle lapping of the lake to lull me to sleep.

            It was well after eleven by now, and all the adults were in bed too.  The lights were off and it was finally almost quiet in the house, except for the two noise makers in my room.  I put my hands behind my head as I lay on my back, considering if I really wanted to go to the trouble of lugging my mattress out to the pier or not.  And as I looked up I saw a sea of stars floating around our room.  Somehow the lid of one of our jars of lightening bugs had come off and the bugs were escaping, soaring up towards the roof of the cottage.  And as all the rooms were open, the fireflies were starting to float now above the partitions of the bedrooms. 

            It began as a giggle.  Someone in one of the other bedrooms had spotted the fireflies dancing up in the rafters.  This caught the notice of someone else and they began to laugh as well.  Before long everyone was awake and infectious laughter began rolling around the cabin like surf.  First it would grow and then began to subside till someone else began to laugh even harder and that, of course, set everyone off again till Uncle John finally called out “Anyone got a fly swatter?”  Well, that did it.  Now no one could get back to sleep, and as the fireflies continued to float around the house, every once in awhile the laughter would start up again; and it became clear we would all be awake for the rest of the night.

*      *      *

            I dreaded Dad being here for his two week vacation.  Not because I didn’t think he deserved a break from work, but because I knew it meant the unthinkable resumption of my clarinet lessons.  Mom, mercifully, allowed the daily clarinet practice to lapse when it was just the three of us alone at the cottage.  It was summer vacation after all.  But Dad?  O-o-oh no, not Dad.  Not only would there be daily practice, but also lessons.

            And since Dad was to be here for a whole two weeks it also meant haircuts for Tommy and me - executed by him - with us in a chair in the kitchen, towels tied around our necks.  What good that did I never understood as the cut hair always fell in our laps and on the floor but never on the towel.   He would clean our necks with his antique hand clippers that always nicked us and pulled at the hair rather than cutting it.  Believe me, if I’d had my way I would have much preferred living in a tree as a Wild Child during the summer.

            Today was lesson day.  Mom was hanging out the laundry on the line by the side of the cottage that got the most sun and had the best breeze off the lake.  The music stand and a folding chair were placed under a tree and I was ordered outside, clarinet in hand and music book under my arm.  Dad stood above and behind me and I began, as always, by playing scales.  Now let it be officially noted that my clarinet playing had all the grace and subtlety of a hippopotamus walking in mud.  My heart was never in this and I sounded terrible.  The whole reason I was playing this stupid thing in the first place was because my father had played it in his high school band and it was now my turn to suffer.  I figured it was some kind of institutional family torture passed down from father to son since the days of Ghengis Khan.  When I played, I squeaked.  My fingers never quite covered the holes, and spit would dribble down my chin.  I would get so nervous with Dad standing over me - always behind, so I couldn’t see when the next blow would come - that my eyes would unfocus and my vision would go all blurry, and I couldn’t even see the music, let alone play it.  And today, with the rather brisk breeze, the lesson book kept blowing off the music stand and I would have to catch it in the middle of a trill.

            Mom finally took pity on me and came over from the clothes line with a hand-full of clothes pins and snapped a few to the music stand to anchor the music.

            “That’s a C not a god damned G.  Play it again” He bellowed.

            I blew out another reluctant G.  It sounded like a bleating calf.

            “No, you played G again.  Didn’t you hear me? �" C �" C.”

            I finally blew a tepid, squeaky C.

            “I don’t know…. I really don’t know why I bother.   It seems like we’ve been on this same god damned lesson ever since last Christmas.  I’ll bet you haven’t been practicing one little bit since you’ve been up here at the lake, have you?”  He looked at me.  He looked over at mother, and she knew what that meant.

            “Don’t you care?  Don’t you care at all about the clarinet?”

            Boy, I bet he sure didn’t want to hear my real answer to that question!

            “I’ve just about had it with you, young man.  It’s deliberate.  You are deliberately trying to thwart me.  Aren’t you?”

            I cowered.  My head down - the clarinet barely still in my hands.

            “Aren’t you?” 

            I hated this clarinet.  And I hated my Dad for making me play it.

            He raised his hand up in the air and paused just a brief moment, and in that moment Mom appeared behind the music stand, directly facing Dad.

            “Don’t you dare.” she almost whispered.

*      *      *

            We heard the sirens long before we were aware of anything else.  They echoed around the lake.  They were far away and only momentarily surfaced in our consciousness.  I went back to my reading.  When the sirens finally turned down our road though, both mother and I looked up from our books and then at each other.  The sirens passed our house and stopped just a few cottages away.  We hurried outside.  There was a lot of activity two doors down at the Duncan cottage.  Two firemen were crouched on the pier, pulling something out of the lake.

            Lonnie and Kevin Duncan were ten and six.  Lonnie and I often played together, scouting the creeks for crawdads and salamanders.  Lonnie had a funny foot but I soon got used to it and didn’t even see it anymore.  Tommy and Kevin liked to construct forts out of boxes they scavenged from behind Friedrich’s. 

            I started to run over to see what was happening but Mom grabbed me by my shirt and held tightly.  Tommy snuggled up close to Mom and we watched from our yard. 

            It was hard at first to see what was going on as there were so many firemen, officers and neighbors crowded around the pier.  But all at once the neighbors backed away as the firemen moved down the pier and on to the lawn shaded by several large trees.  The Firemen were carrying something, and like a trick of stage magic a white sheet flew up into the air and settled on the ground, revealing a small form underneath.  Mom gave the tiniest, hesitant gasp and took hold of Tommy.  Mom had let go of my shirt and I ran over to a large maple tree at the edge of our yard and leaned against it and peered around the side.

            From this closer angle I could see more clearly that the shape under the sheet was that of a small child.  Mrs. Duncan was holding Lonnie tightly on their cabin porch, while Mr. Duncan conferred with the officers down at the pier.  Several of the neighbor ladies went over to Mrs. Duncan and put their arms around her.  She leaned her head against one woman’s shoulder.  Another neighbor took Lonnie inside the Duncan cottage. 

            Tommy broke free of Mom and rushed over to me and peered around the edge of the tree next to me.  He reached up and took my hand. 

            Several firemen came around the side of the Duncan cottage with a stretcher.  They placed it on the ground next to the sheet.  It took only one fireman to place the covered body on the stretcher and then it was promptly carried away.  The crowd began to thin as the onlookers moved back to their cabins. 

            Mom came over, took both our hands and took us inside.

            The next day I went over to see how Lonnie was doing but their cabin was shut up tight and dark, their car gone, and their rowboat rocked gently at the end of the pier.

*      *      *

            Tommy had already gone to bed.  Mom had finished the dishes and was preparing to snuggle down for the evening with the book she’d been reading all summer - but first she put a record on the Victrola.  She sighed as she settled in by the reading lamp in our old beat up sofa that looked like a sleeping buffalo.  She was reading some massive Tolstoy epic.  I jokingly called it her epidemic.  She patted the sofa for me to join her.  I came over and lay down with my head in her lap, while she began to read.

            The wind blew the screen door and it snapped against the door frame.  There were flashes of lightning and the rumble of thunder moving across the lake and lighting up our yard like a million 4^th of July sparklers.

            I closed my eyes and listened to the music. 

            “Are the Duncan’s coming back?” I asked, looking up at Mom.

            She put down the book and thought for a moment.  “I haven’t heard.”

            Neither of us spoke for quite a while; then she picked up her book and began reading again.

            I listened to the music �" the Mozart Clarinet Concerto.  I had heard it many times before, of course, but tonight, for the first time, I finally connected the dots and realized that the clarinet on the record was the same instrument that I was torturing so badly in my not very subtle rebellion every time I practiced; and I thought that maybe, just maybe, if I tried a little bit harder �" then one day, I too, might make it sound as beautiful as that.