The Boys at
Grandpa's Lake House
by
Jeff Stimpson © 2005
Grandpa has a new summer house. He has also bought
a canoe, a rowboat, beds, and a lot of other stuff to help us give
the boys a good time on a body of water in hot weather. The house is
splendid, with big rooms and lots of bright wood, a deck and a wine
cellar, air conditioning even in the basement, and few spiders. It's
also right on a lake, and has a shared dock that Alex and Ned, left
unsupervised, can run to in about 20 seconds.
They both found the path to the dock pretty quick
on their first visit, sending me and Jill and Uncle Rob scurrying
after them through the undergrowth to cut them -- mostly Alex -- off
before they dove in. Actually, Alex just stepped in, but then didn't
so much fall as slip off a submerged slimy rock, and got all wet.
He's more used to pools and beaches than rocky lakefronts.
I didn't think they would sit in a boat with any
enthusiasm, and beyond blowing bubbles in the tub, neither boy can
swim that well. Aunt Julie and Uncle Rob generously bought both boys
life jackets. "Can you swim?" Aunt Julie asked me. "And you can't
swim that well, either?" she said, pointing to Jill. "Grandpa and
Uncle Rob are certified lifesavers. They'll take the boys out
in the boat!"
Outstanding! I think. Where's the beer?
Actually, Grandpa and I rowed out with the boys
the first time. Alex kept dipping his hand in the lake and saying,
"Water. Water." "Are there sharks in here?" Ned kept asking, peering
over the side. Both boys sat quietly. Jill and I took them out next.
Alex dumped our bottle of drinking water over the side, looking like
Katherine Hepburn dumping out Humphrey Bogart's gin in "The African
Queen."
I found it almost easy to maneuver the rowboat,
which we took because it's potentially more stable than the canoe
when Alex and Ned are aboard. A pull on one side, a pull on the
other, and when the bow was pointed in the right goddamned direction
I, facing behind ("aft," as we mariners say), got a fix on something
straight ahead of my line of sight. That's how you keep a boat
pointed straight if you're facing "aft." My friend Patrick's father
taught me that. He was in the Merchant Marine, and a brave man: He
sailed freighters laden with ammo through North Korean minefields,
and he took me on a sailboat.
Jill watched me row and said I looked "hunky." The
boys sat quietly. So much for the beer.
We tried to take both boys swimming at the little
beach on the lake. Ned happily splashed around. "Cold, cold," Alex
kept saying, so he and I got back in the rowboat and shoved off to
investigate the underwater power lines down in a back cove. Still
Alex just sat, watching the sun sparkle on the ripples.
I wish I'd been the one able to buy this place,
but I guess something must be going right in my 43rd summer if I
actually "shoved off" from somewhere. "It's easier to row if you
don't dip the oar blades so deep in the water," grandpa has said.
Yeah, but then I don't look so hunky.
I spent a lot of time around lakes when I was
growing up; I remember the flash of the perch, the bump of the
canoe's side (the "hull") against the dock. Still, I sort of got the
outdoors out of my system in the teen years with Patrick, and I
don't have a special place, unless you count certain pinball arcades
and bowling alleys in central Maine, now long torn-down but once the
type of places I loved and that my mother used to call "dives". Jill
has Cape Cod, where she spent some girlhood time, and where we've
gone twice on vacation. Alex loves the Cape's incomparable beaches,
though he can't figure out why he shouldn't strip to just a swim
diaper on a 50-degree day. Ned will get his feet wet, though
sometimes he just stands on the sand and proclaims his fear of the
seaweed.
Both boys may one day have grandpa's lake house as
a special place. The equipment's all there. There's a blow-up raft;
Alex crawled into it while it was still in the garage and tried to
fall asleep. Aunt Julie and Uncle Rob have also reportedly purchased
fish food. For the sharks, probably.
Copyright 2005 Jeff Stimpson, all rights reserved
