I woke up in the morning cold, tired and a little wet. Accidental like, I had touched the side of the tent and got a face full of dew drops. Feeling groggy, I stumbled inside the house and changed into my running gear. My aunt was getting coffee and was shocked that I wanted to run around the lake. “Honey, it’s a little over a mile to the stop sign.” I smiled. Perfect.
I put my MP3 player on and started slow, taking in the beautiful morning sky. It was awesome, talking to God, thanking him for such creative detail in the flowers, trees, animals, bugs…actually, there weren’t many bugs. I sped up to a slow jog and listened to some country music followed by some Christian music followed by some Gwen Stefani. It was a relaxing and rewarding jog.
I arrived back to see the two squirts watching TV. Lyndsay is so cute. One of the first things she had learned the night before was how to use the TV. Uncle Ed showed her some stations that she wrote down in her second grade handwriting. What were those stations? Well, of course there was the Disney Channel but the other two made me laugh: The Weather Channel and Discovery, two channels she normally doesn’t care about. “Well, we need to check the weather to make sure its going to be nice out,” she said to me. She could barely contain herself until 11:00 when the no wake time ends on the lake. Jeff taught her how to fish. I took a mid-morning nap in the tent. Soon enough, Jeff was whooping with joy. He had caught a 12 inch bass off the neighbor’s dock. We took pictures. It was great.
My cousin Cory, his wife Gretchen and her brother Jimmy, showed up around noonish. Cory is four months older than I am and a really laid back guy. Almost the moment he arrived, he too was out on the neighbor’s dock fishing. Shortly after, he was yelling and laughing: a 14 inch bass was his. Now, the source of most of the humor isn’t the fact that Cory and Jeff effortlessly caught such big fish in a short amount of time. The humor in this is if you knew Cory’s brother-in-law and Jeff’s co-worker, Tom Turek. Tom has been trying to catch a big fish out of Pretty Lake for something like 10 years. He’s also been into fly fishing lately and traveling around Michigan to catch fish. Doesn’t seem to have the touch. Cory and Jeff saved the fish to show Tom, knowing he would be proud of them. When Tom did show up…well…he just shook his head and pretty much disappeared for the rest of the weekend. We would catch glimpses of him out on the pontoon with a fishing rod in his hand, muttering under his breath.
So, while all of this was going on, my niece, ever so patiently, was ready to go tubing….but the boat wouldn’t start. Crap. First, Jeff tested the battery. Then, they tried a new battery. Lastly, they figured it was the starter so Jeff unscrewed it and drove it into town to have it tested. After two trips to the marina and the time now nearing 5:00, Jeff had the right part and went to work fixing the boat. In the meantime, the neighbor let us use his boat so that a certain little girl who had been looking forward to tubing for a full year wouldn’t freak out. When she got on the tube and the boat started moving, she freaked out. Tears and the whole bit. We took the borrowed boat back in and waited for ours to be fixed. Finally….FINALLY at around 6:00, the boat was ready. We took it out and my little cousin Kaitlyn, her friend Brianne, and my nephew (all thirteen years old) went tubing.
We started getting dinner ready: tinfoil dinners and campfire sandwiches. Let me know if you want more detail on those. After dinner, Tom wanted to take the pontoon out for some nighttime fishing. The next thing he knew, he was surrounded by the 8 other humans wanting to go as well. He and Cory patiently helped the rest learn how to fish. Jeff took off by himself in the row boat wanting nothing to do with that mess. I also went out on the pontoon and just felt free, staring up at the cloudy sky, watching the peaceful ripples of water, smacking some mosquitoes that had found their way through my protective layer of Skintastic. It was so much fun. After an hour, we headed in…bite less.
Everyone except for the kids, gathered around the campfire. Cory said, “hey, Holl, are you ready for my ghost story?” Knowing he had just made it up, I nodded. Here is the story:
Peter and Eleanor Bowers used to own the ice company on Pretty Lake. One winter, Peter came out to cut chunks of ice but he slipped and fell in. By the time rescuers arrived, it was too late. His body was frozen solid. They had no choice but to put him in a bag and hang him in the ice house to wait for spring. His wife, Eleanor, who was pregnant with twins, went mad when they told her Peter was dead. When spring came, some relatives went to get the body to bury it…but it was gone. Eleanor had also disappeared.
Cory paused at this point trying to remember the rest of the tale. I jumped in with… “and every night…about this time of year…when the wind blows in from the north…” Cory laughed. Gretchen jumped in and said, “Wait, Holly. It gets better.” Cory continued.
“Every night, about this time of year, when the dew drops fall on your tent…its Peter, thawing out from his frozen grave…and he’s looking for twelve and thirteen year old kids to replace the ones he lost…”
“That was lame, Cory,” I said. “You think it will scare the kids?” he asked. I just laughed.
There was a karaoke party taking place at the other end of the lake. My uncle wanted to check it out so Tom and I went along. There were mostly drunk people but some really funny teenagers, too. One kid got up and sang “Just My Imagination” and it was pretty bad. Still, he had spirit, swaying to the music and snapping his fingers. When he finished, he yelled out, “Thank you, Pretty Lake!” We clapped. Half an hour later, we headed back, singing our own songs: a little bit of Boat Drinks and a little bit of Merle.
When I returned, Gretchen ran up to me. “Hurry, Holly, Cory’s testing his story out on Tom, Sandy and your sister….there’s even a date now! He keeps adding in new details.”
I slept in the tent with the thirteen year-olds listening to thunder in the distance. It sounded like cannon balls. I had prayed like crazy to give us good weather although the weather channel was calling for rain. I slept soundly, with extra blankets, finally getting a good night’s sleep.
No comments:
Post a Comment