An article in the local “rag” (the Post-Crescent) tweeked my interest this weekend. The author was in the process of buying a cottage “up north”. He really didn’t know why he was following this quest to a lake cottage but it was part of life’s fantasy. The author’s justification was he could make a pot of coffee in the morning, slip out to a beautiful deck and watch the sunrise over quiet water. The rest of the family had a place to flee when they needed to. Swimming! Boating! Water skiing! Family bar-b-ques. Oh, my! I have to admit that was part of my psyche when we bought our cottage.
Then reality sets in. Usually people have to travel busy highways to get up north to their cottage. Memorial Day kicks off the cottage season and Labor signals seasons end. Holidays are when amateurs arrive with the big boats, ignorance of lake laws and the huge inner tubes pulled behind boats. Oh, I loved the holiday weekends.
If you really think about it, most enjoyment of cottages is on weekends. Every summer season has about 12-13 weekends. You need to get the cottage living “out of your system” in 13 short weeks. Throw in other demands on your time such as family graduations or reunions and an occasionaly rainy weekend and you realistly have 8 shots at heaven.
Then there are the cottage repairs, the maintenance and cutting grass. And the water system! The life line of the cottage is good clean drinking water (and bathing). Sometimes the pump wouldn’t work. Or there was rust in the line. Or the sandpoint ruptured and sand permeates the whole system. But we remained undeterred.
Then there is the neighbor factor. If you are lucky you get sweet caring neighbors. We happened to get a neighbor from hell. One of our good neighbors caught Floyd on video camera raking weeds from his shoreline onto our shoreline. Come on! You can’t choose your neighbors.
What about the beetles that infested the floor, the raccons that got into the attic and the squirrels that got into the wall? Those problems got solved and the dream lived on.
Then it happened. Some magic would take place. Special family members would joins us for an “outing”. Or, I would find that there was still gas in the boat and I could use it for a change.
For me, the really big, big, big magic occurred when Margaret decided she would like to have her graduation party from high school at the cottage and we invited every family member and special friends. And they came. I can’t remember who didn’t come. Grandma, Grandpa along with the Ullrichs and the Stegers and the Andrews clan. I remember Marjorie and Alan. The Klusendorf family came down from Appleton. The Graf family from “up the road”. And the sun was shining. Little kids splashed in the water. Christopher took little people for boat rides around the lake. Almost all activity was on the lake front lawn. And at the end of the day I remember thinking, this was why we bought the cottage in the first place. A shining moment. The dream had been realized.
And then as with all things, the fantasy got old. It was time to move on. Kids got older. Things changed. But you can’t take away the memories. Having our cottage did fill one of life’s fantasies. I hope it does the same for the author of the Post-Crescent article.
Love,
Dad