Chapter 37

(with help from Linda A)

I was quite young the first time I read The Water Babies, a fairy tale about a young chimney sweep, living in poverty, as he discovers a world under water. I am unsure whether Linda read me the book or if I just picked it up on my own, but it had a lasting impact on how I saw the world, and it certainly fed our many summers spent at or in the lake.

In the eight summers between the ages of 8 and 16, my sister Linda, and eventually our friend, Linda A, lived in The Lake. Every summer day was built around when we could head down to the Lake or when we needed to head home from the Lake. Even when it was raining, we tried to convince Mother that we’d love to go swimming. Linda A lived on the shore of Maple Lake during the summers at her parents’ rather rustic cabin (which my grandfather had built). They didn’t have a phone (can you imagine living without a phone?) so there was no way for us to communicate. Many days we would just show up on her doorstep, swimsuits and towels in hand, ready to hit the water.

That worked pretty well for the day trips, but we often wanted to visit with Linda A again after dinner. But how did we find out if it was okay to come down in the evening? Let me explain the geography of our situation. To get to her cabin, we had to cross the road in front of our house, walk through a corn field, first up a small hill, and then down to her cabin. When the corn was still short enough, we could actually stand on the top of the small hill and see down to her cabin. So we hatched a plan of action. Linda A would ask her parents if we could come down, and if the answer was “yes” she’d stand behind her cabin and wave a blue flag; if it was “no” she would wave a red flag.

There were a few problems with this system. First, we never seemed to get the timing of the flag waving right, so my sister and I would stand on the hill waiting for Linda A to come out. Nothing happened, or Linda A would be waving her flag, and we weren’t on the hill. We also had trouble remembering the color coding. Should we go, or should we not go? As much as we wanted it to work, it seldom did.

Those first few summers, when the three of us were still really just children, we spent as much time in the water as possible. One of our favorite pastimes was pretending we were having an underwater tea party. We’d often sing at these tea parties (underwater, of course). That led to a new game, which was for one of us to pick a song, then we’d all duck under the water and listen to see if we could guess the song the other one of us was singing. I don’t think I have ever laughed so hard, or sustained the laughter so long, as I did playing that game.

We also spent way too much time sitting on the dock, dangling our feet in the water, letting little fish nibble away (and probably screaming each time they took a small bite!). Sometimes Linda A would get some white dish towels from her mom, and we’d try to catch the minnows. Two of us would submerge the dish towel, and the third one would try to herd the minnows into the towel. We seldom caught anything, but if we did, Linda A would run up and put it in her dad’s minnow bucket.

Grandad Mares had also built a cabin for himself, which was located right next to Linda A’s cabin. It had a rope swing tied to a huge tree. If you swung hard enough you would end up over the water, where we’d drop with a big splash. We could only do this when we were small and the lake was high!  I think our parents frowned upon this activity.

Over the years, Linda A’s parents bought a number of boats, each better than the last. But, at first, we only had an old wooden rowboat (with an old motor of Linda A’s grandpa). We were all a bit afraid of the motor, so we rowed, and rowed, and rowed … taking turns as one of the three of us would work one oar at a time.   Lots of circles and heading in the wrong direction from where we wanted to go. Of course, this was accompanied by ongoing instructions from those NOT rowing, and tons of laughter (the kind where you had to jump over the side of the boat into the water before you peed your pants).

Fishing was an adventure in and of itself. When we would fish, we would load up fishing poles (and ALWAYS wore life jackets — a family RULE) and head toward the bog not far from Linda A’s cabin.  Jim, Linda A’s father, was always helping us pull together all of the fishing gear, including the can of worms we’d need to entice the fish to bite. Once we were loaded up, life jackets on, snacks and drinks safely stored, off we’d go. Of course, it would take us forever to go this short distance because of the whole rowing thing. Usually by the time we got to a good fishing spot, we were pretty thirsty and hungry, so the boat picnic happened first, and then we got down to business. If we actually caught a fish, which believe it or not actually did happen, we would have to row back to shore so Linda A’s dad or brother, Jimmy, could take it off the hook. We could put the worm on the hook, but actually taking a live fish off the hook? No, thank you. So, as you can imagine, our fishing days were made up of mostly rowing around in circles.

Linda A had saved up her money for a number of years to buy herself a horse. Once she realized how much it would cost to board and feed a horse, she gave up that dream and bought herself (and us!) a canoe. We were in heaven. It was a stable canoe, but we had a knack for tipping it over (which we all thought was hilarious). But once we had capsized it, we could not get it turned back over, so Linda A’s dad would have to come out in their pontoon boat and rescue us, and the canoe. We flipped that canoe so many times I am surprised Linda A’s dad didn’t just let us drown!

Sometimes when we went out in the rowboat, we’d take nets along over to the bog to hunt for turtles.  We caught quite a few (the teeny turtles were the favorite — but very hard to catch, so we celebrated every time). A few times, we took the turtles to the shore to race them, even giving them names. We always let them go “home to their mom” at the end of the day!

On rare occasions, we were allowed to have a sleepover in our grandad’s cabin, under the watchful eye of Linda A’s parents, who were right next door. On one of these occasions, we took Linda A out to hunt snipes, which of course Linda A fell for, and which tickled us to no end.

As we got older, we would spend many days on the pontoon or on beach chairs in shallow water, tanning and putting lemon juice in our hair so it would lighten faster! (Well, sister Linda didn’t — hers was dark brown.) We lost the magic of those early summer days with underwater tea parties, but our friendship remained as strong as ever.

“The most wonderful and the strongest things in the world, you know, are just the things which no one can see.” — Charles Kingsley, The Water Babies