Friday, July 31, 2009

There Is Something About July

I am not sure what it is about July but I think it is my favorite summer month on the Lake. Just as most other places, July starts out with a bang. July 4th is like the official kick off day of summer, even though school's been out since June.

In my family we would sometimes have a family picnic at my parent’s house with our Uncles and Aunts and Cousins. They would come over to enjoy the fireworks from our screened-in deck and it there wasn't a spectacular professional fireworks display put on as a city sponsored event (I didn't know those actually existed until I met my husband) that we could watch from the comfort of our home, but a local fireworks tradition, a neighborly, but all out war of who had the best and most fireworks.
Now in Minnesota, as it is in some other states, most forms of fireworks are illegal to the average Joe. There were just too many blown off hands to allow the goings on of unprofessional fireworks displays. Still, that didn't stop anyone on our lake from sneaking the best and the biggest from across the border, and I don't mean the Canadian border (we get drugs there but not our fireworks, as a matter of principal) no, instead we would get them from either Wisconsin or South Dakota.

When thinking about the lengths the neighbors and my Uncles went to achieve Firework Master Status I can see the true beauty of the annual war they had. It really was an homage to all 4th of July stood for. One simply did their best to last longer in their supply than any other on the lake. Hicks shoots off a fountain, Uncle Red shoots off a Johnny Jumper into the lake (which is spectacular to see), and across the lake the Jones shoot off stars and stripes. Back and forth they would take turns until last man standing.

As in all war children often get in the middle of the battle. Days after we were called upon to judge the best. We weren't always partial either to our families. In one way we declared our own winner regardless of who lasted the longest, but by the one who shot off the most of our favorites (mine were the fountains).
Despite our own declarations of who the winner was it would never be truly settled and year after year the battle continued. The battle ground has changed slightly, new neighbors take on the mantle of the long war, but always with the same ambition of former battles. Who will be the best?

At long last I want to mention the other things that make July my favorite summer month: Pontoons and fireflies. You may see them at other times, but July is when I most identify with them. As with the fireworks display on the 4th of July during the day people on the lake would decorate and take out their pontoons for a 4th of July parade. They would make a trip around the lake either playing music or honking their pontoon horn.

It is nice to think that parades don't have to be sponsored by the city, or a business to be called a parade. A neighborhood parade of the people, who you share a bit of your world with, your nearest neighbors, is all it takes to make the 4th of July special; or anytime special for that matter.

Lastly, in saying good bye to the month of July I will end with two things: first, fireflies. Fireflies are their own little firework. They flit around the tall grasses like little lanterns searching for love. They have a brief light in this world and last only for a small moment in time. They represent the brief summer of our life and youth, which flits by in a moment. They are wondrous little things that can transform your back yard into a haven of lights like stars. My dad would sometimes help me catch them and keep them in a jar with a twig and grass to eat, but their light would only last the night. Far too brief.

And just like the brief light of the firefly, our lives are brief. We are only flits of light in this world. My second thing speaks to that, people. Just like yesterday for me has gone out I have today to look forward to, yet, there are many in my life who are no longer able to be a part of this world. Their light has irrevocably gone out.

I want to say goodbye to July, but in saying goodbye to July I want to remember Jim Graff who passed away recently. I didn't know Jim well, but he seemed like someone who enjoyed July well. I honor him as I honor those in my family whose lights have gone out. Their lights were spectacular to behold!

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Gossip of the Day

The road to my parents house is 1.7 miles from Hwy 33. I know because I have on several occasions walked end to end. We live pretty much right of nowhere and left of everywhere else.

The first curve in the road leads to your best view of Lake Charlotte; except now there are a few new houses blocking the visual grandeur. The Big Lake is what it is sometimes referred to by Lake Charlotters and the Bay is the other part (where my parents live).

When you first turn on our road, and on the other side of the road from Lake Charlotte there is Lake Martha. Poor Martha has had a Millweed problem for a long while now because the DNR don't pay much mind to her. Lake Charlotte is where it's at.

Now on several occasions I have walked down our road, or rode my bike the 1.7 miles and those times have been when I've stayed after for school (the bus only dropped us as far as the road), when I've visited my friend Cheryl, and when my cousins and I went trick-or-treating. I never minded the walk when we went trick-or-treating because we were always rewarded every few feet.

Now there is a steep hill on the other side of the triangle where my parents house is located. Following that hill there is another even steeper hill that is nearly impossible to drive on in a really bad snow storm. The houses at the bottom of the hill were never really generous with candy and it wasn't until the top of the hill where there was anything very promising.

I remember Mr. and Mrs. Lockheader because of the excellent choices of candy they would hand out, usually my favorite of 3Musketeers. Most often they gave a choice of three. They had a blue glass bowl that sat in the entry way of their really nice house (You could see the sun setting over the lake from the far window).

It seemed like it was usually Mr. Lockheader that handed out the candy, but sometimes it was Mrs. Lockheader. I don't think they ever had children, so I imagine this was a treat for them to see us kids getting candy.

That's how I remember them, the Lockheaders, good candy people. That's the way I should remember them, but the last time I came home and I saw Lake Charlotte peaking through the new houses on the corner in the road I thought of how much has changed around the lake. When I got to the hill of the Lockheaders' home it was for sale. I was surprised they decided to move.

"Mom, did you know that the Lockheader's house is for sale?" I said.

"Yeah, they can't sell either, not since the murder."

Shocked! Anyone would be when something like this is brought into the home of their childhood sanctuary. The only death I remember on Lake Charlotte was a man who drowned one summer on the Big lake from too much alcohol.

"It was all over the news" my Dad said.

"I don't get your news though." I said.

My Mom was so matter-of-fact when she said "I guess the Lockheaders were swingers. They got a divorce I guess, but Mr Lockheader and one of the other couples still hung around together, but the wife decided she liked Mr Lockheader better and wanted a divorce."

My Dad continued "The husband shot his wife, drove out here and shot Dick. Then he went back and shot himself. He lives all the way in Burnsville, or something like that."

My Dad took a drag on his cigarette when he finished and said "I'm going out to feed the birds."

"Did you hear the shot?" You could hear things quite clear on the lake at night. It was like the water echoing back the day to you, telling you secrets you missed during the noise of the day. My parents must have heard this one.

"Didn't know about it until we saw it on the news. We were at the nursing home with Grandma when it happened." She said, "Do you want something to eat?"

*This is based on a true account of something that happened recently on Lake Charlotte, but I have fictionalized enough to make it gossip.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

A Rock For All Times


I'm not sure when I learned to swim underwater, but I didn't learn to swim on the surface until I was seven at the Buffalo Recreation Center (go figure). It might have to do with the fact that swimming under water was more fascinating. I see everything above the water's surface all of the time, but it's what's below the surface that I only would get a few minutes at a time.

Maybe I was a fish in a former life. Well if you know me, I'm really a fish in this life. I'm a Pisces; I'm two fish swimming in opposite directions. Not easy to do!

My parents have several memories of me swimming that I don't have, which is not because I didn't do them, but because I was too young to really claim them as my own. They remember the fist time I sat on Stephie's rock. It was the place I could sit in the water and watch our world go by.

Then there is the memory of me running down to the lake with nothing but my own gift from God, my clothes were rumpled and cast aside in my sand box, and I ran right to my sitting rock (I called it the sitting rock and my parents called it Stephie's rock). From that point on I was know as Streaker.

Don't worry; those were my young care free days. Now I like to keep my clothes on as a sense of duty to the occasional passerby.

The "sitting rock" is still there in front of my parent’s house. It stands as a true cornerstone to my early days. Sitting there on the rock with half of myself in the water and the other half above, I was the yin and yang of two fish in opposite directions, a solid but mutable girl. I could change and move like water, be shaped like water over my rock that smoothes out the rough edges, yet I could be as fixed as ice and as stationary as the rock I stood on when it comes to love.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Intermission

I've been on a short break. More of Lake Charlotte coming soon! Hang on to your paddles.