"Look at that fool dog, Tony.
He's peeing all over that boat," complained Don Thomas, one of Grandpa’s
regular customers. He wanted to go fishing and Grandpa had the only rental
boats on the lake.
View from the cabin on Lake Julia.
"That one is yours to
rent, providing the dog let's you have it." T-Bone -- an English Setter --
was Uncle Al's dog, but he preferred Grandpa's company and follow him so
closely they cast one shadow.
Grandpa lovingly patted
T-Bone's head. "You must know, Don, he doesn’t take too kindly to calling
him a fool dog. You had best apologize to him."
"I'm not going to even talk
to that dumb dog much less apologize to him."
Grandpa sat down on one of the overturned boats. "Now you've gone and done
it. T-Bone was only marking that boat for you and you call him a name. I
think the cost of rentals has just gone up."
"For crying out loud, Tony," Don said as he sat down on one of the other
boats. "I only want to rent a boat. Not kiss the rear of some idiot of a
dog." T-Bone growled. Grandpa rose and made for the cottage, T-Bone
right behind, both feigning indignation.
"OK T-Bone, I'm sorry," Don said more with resignation than sincerity. "Now
can I please rent a boat? I want to fish, not stand and palaver all day."
"Since you have made amends to T-Bone, we can let you have a boat for the
day. That will be two- bits. I'll get the oars. You need two sets or one?"
"How many of me do you see, Tony? One set will do."
"Get up on the wrong side of the bed, Don? You're really touchy this morning."
Grandpa went to the basement of the cottage to get the oars leaving Don
muttering to himself.
"Someday I'll get a boat of my own and not have to put up with this
foolishness. That damn dog thinks he's so smart. That Tony needs a
little competition, and the dog needs a good swift boot. All this crap to
rent one of those hunks of wood he calls a boat. It’s a lot of abuse to
row one of these tubs out into the lake to catch a couple of measly
Sunfish. Sometimes I wonder why I put up with it.
"Here's your oars, Dan. I hope you have good luck. The fish were really
biting yesterday."
Don got into the boat and fit the oars into the locks. As Grandpa shoves
him off, he can hear Don mumbling. "Fish were biting yesterday. This is
the best boat in the fleet. That's what Tony says every time. If this
boat is the best the rest would sink before they got to the end of the dock!"
Meanwhile, Grandpa and T-Bone made their way wearily back to the cottage
for lunch. T-Bone paused only long enough to make a detour to mark another
of the boats to be ready for the next customer. Renting boats is demanding
work.
Sundays at Grandpa’s cottage on Lake Julia was a ritual for our family.
The cottage was primitive but it was still a castle to us. It was nothing
more than a large screened porch set on a rock foundation. It had a roof
and drop-down weather shutters. It had no electricity. A hand pump
outside the back door served as the water supply and up the hill a hundred
feet away was an outhouse. The outhouse was a two-holer and boasted the
usual Montgomery Ward catalogue. The women brought food and prepared a
meal fit for royalty. For us kids, if there was a heaven on earth, it had
to be Grandpa's cottage.
Grandpa and T-Bone arrived just in time for the meal to be set before him.
Of course, we knew that Grandma
kept a watchful eye out for Grandpa and
timed the meal to be ready upon his arrival at the front door. Grandpa
finished his meal and retired to his rocker to rest his eyes with T-Bone at
his feet curled up and dozing. Whether it was the food Grandpa ate or just
his state of relaxation, nature took its course and the noise of his wind
was enough to wake Grandpa up.
"Damn you T- Bone," Grandpa hollered and kicked poor T- Bone out the front
door. T- Bone had no idea why he was being chastised. Everybody knew it
was Grandpa who had broken the after dinner quiet.
"Dad, why did you blame that poor dog?" said one of his daughters. "We all
know it was you that passed the gas." Everybody was laughing and poor T-
Bone lay on the front steps worried but no wiser.
"C'mon you two," Grandpa
ordered his son, Joe, and me.
"We have to go to the Briggs Lake Store for groceries for Grandma and I
need some pipe tobacco. A soul isn't going to get any rest around here."
The only store in the area was on Briggs Lake. There were two ways to
reach the store. One was by driving around the lakes and the other was by
water. In the summer, Grandpa preferred to go by water, especially if he
had manpower to do the rowing. Uncle Joe was fifteen and I was only seven.
I was floating on a cloud, so pleased was I at being chosen. Joe was not
so enthused. He had made the trip many times and didn't relish the task.
I wasn’t aware that Grandpa needed somebody to occupy the second set of
oarlocks so that he wouldn’t have to row. Even so, I was determined to
prove that I could row with the best of them.
Down to the beach we went. "Joe, you take the oars in the middle and
Spence you use the ones in the bow. I will sit in the stern and direct
you," ordered Grandpa. He was Captain. Joe grumbled but went along
because he had an ulterior motive
Off we went. Grandpa sat in the stern and told us which way to go. When
rowing, you face the stern and the direction of travel is to your back. I
had the set of oarlocks next to the bow and Joe was ahead of me closest to
Grandpa. Grandpa had full vision of the direction of travel and sat back
and smoked his pipe.
"Today is the day we will break the speed record to the Briggs Lake
Store," Grandpa proclaimed.
Joe’s groan was louder than he intended.
Grandpa instructed, "I will count cadence and guide you. If I say right,
then you pull only on your right oar. If I say left then pull only on your
left oar. Don't worry about where you are going, I'll take care of that."
The boats were heavy and cedar-slatted with almost no keel. There was a
place for an outboard motor. On trips like this Grandpa disdained the use
of a motor for a good reason. It wouldn’t make it through the passage
between the lakes. It was the time of the year when the water was low. He
didn't want to have to unhook it and bring it into the boat when we got
into the rushes and the shallow water. Besides he had two willing rowers.
Well, he had one willing and one unwilling. His problem was that I was the
willing one. Willing but too little and too weak to do much. Joe, was
big enough and strong enough but his heart wasn't in it.
"OK guys, now let's go. Pull. Pull," Grandpa said, counting cadence for
us. He kept increasing the pace until I couldn't keep up. This slowed Joe
down as well because most of the burden fell upon him.
"Come on you two. We'll never break a record at this rate." I had great
trust in Grandpa and wanted to break the record, but I didn’t have a clue
what it was.
Grandpa checked his watch. We had just reached the passage between the two
lakes.
"We're ahead of the record," he declared. By that, I assumed that Grandpa
was a part of the team and would take his share of credit for whatever
record might be set. Which was great by me. Joe wasn’t enthused.
The passage between Lake Julia and Briggs Lake was wide but filled with
rushes and lily pads which made it all but impossible to traverse. Early
boaters would find the channel and make a way for others to follow. The
only visible trail was made by boats knocking down the rushes. The
passage was shallow, drawing no more than a foot or two of water when the
lakes were high and six inches when low. It was a quarter of a mile long
and crookedly winds its way through. Getting lost wasn’t hard and
grounding in the muck was easy. Finding the way took experience, and
Grandpa had plenty of it.
Grandpa steered us through the rushes without once coming aground.
"Now all we have to do is race across Briggs to the store and I think we
will have a new record."
I rowed until my hands and arms felt like they were coming off. My feet
almost pushed a hole through the bottom of the boat. Grandpa still kept up
the cadence count. A few times it felt like I was rowing the boat all by
myself. I couldn't tell for sure what Joe was doing but I think he was
letting his oars drift with the boat and pretending to pull.
"Come on Joe. Don't let the kid do all the work. Let's get that record,"
Grandpa pleaded.
We finally made it to the dock that the store had built for their water
customers. "We've set a new record. We shaved three minutes off the old
record. I think I will just sit here in the boat while you guys go up to
the store. All that work has worn me out"
Grandpa lit his pipe and settled back.
"Here," he said to Joe. "Take this money and follow the list. Get
everything that your mother needs. Grandson, I want you to get me some
pipe tobacco. You will need this note because the clerk won't sell it to
either of you. You’re both too young."
The store was up the hill
about a quarter of a mile away, and we trudged through the warm sand in our
bare feet.
Joe glanced over his shoulder and with an inaudible whisper said to me,
"Give me that tobacco note that Dad gave to you." We were barely out of
sight of Grandpa in the boat and too far from the store for anyone to see
what Joe was doing. He added a package of Lucky Strike Cigarettes to the
note and handed it back to me.
"Dad forgot to add the
cigarettes to the list," he said. "He always gets a pack of Luckys when he
comes over here."
Hot and weary with rowing the boat and walking through the hot sand up the
hill, the coolness of the store was a welcome relief. A pop or an ice
cream bar sure would taste good, but with no money I could only wish. Joe
collected the list of groceries for Grandma and I handed the tobacco list
to another clerk. He gave me a package of Grandpa's favorite pipe tobacco
and a pack of Lucky Strikes.
We left the store and no
sooner were we outside than Joe demanded that I give him the pack of
cigarettes.
"No, I want to give them to
Grandpa along with his pipe tobacco."
"The Luckys are for me," Joe said impatiently. "I don't want Grandpa to
know, and I don't want you telling him. Understand?" I didn't know the
cigarettes were not for Grandpa. Even though I was only seven, I was smart
enough to not argue with a fifteen year old.
"You realize don’t you, that
we didn't set any speed record today?"
"Grandpa said we did," I
protested.
"Dad always says that when he
wants to get to the store quickly."
"He looked at his watch
before we left and again at the rushes and when we pulled up to the dock."
"Of course he did, but he
never told us what the record was or what time we made, did he?"
"No," I said beginning to
feel deflated and cheated. Joe studied my obvious dejection.
"I've made that trip many
times and I don't think I have ever gone faster. If there is a record, I
think we set it, today." I looked up and smiled, not feeling so cheated and
feeling much better about the back-breaking effort.
As we reached the boat,
Grandpa helped us aboard. With the cigarettes safely hidden, Joe handed
Grandpa the groceries and the change. I gave him the pipe tobacco. Grandpa
reached into the bag of groceries and produced three ice cream bars. One for each of us.
"This is our reward for
setting a new speed record," he said.
As we sat there on the boat
with the warm sun on our backs, I savored the best tasting chocolate ice
cream bar I ever had. Grandpa filled his pipe with the new tobacco and lit
his pipe. The essence of it swept over the boat and together with the ice
cream bar, my day had turned out to be a very memorable one.
"Now, let’s set a new record
going home," said Grandpa.
Joe and I groaned aloud in
protest.
"Only kidding," laughed Grandpa.
Spence Stimler comments on "A Sunday at Lake Julia": "Grandpa purchased
the land from Sjolander and built the cottage in
the early twenties. Marie bought it after Grandpa
died to keep it from being lost to taxes and to provide her
mother with some additional cash. He did rent boats and
was the only one on Lake Julia that did. Boats in those days
were very crude. . . .
"You can't believe how difficult it was to get through the
lilies and rushes between the lakes. Many is the time that
you had to pole your way through. The rushes grew tall and
when you are a kid you had no way to see over them. When
you would try to step out of the boat to pull it through the
shallow water you would be in muck halfway up your
thighs. Scarey. We were always afraid of quicksand which
I don't think even existed except in our minds and was
placed there by adults who were trying to keep you from
getting out of their sight. Most of the adults couldn't swim
and were deathly afraid of the water and so they infused us
with the same unfounded fear."
