He gives me a tool gadget, about the size of a credit card. It has most of the same tools and gadgets available on Swiss Army knives. I am not sure what uses I will find for it, but I thank him and gracefully slip it into my shirt pocket.
Since his last visit, our techno-friend has upgraded from his simple, handheld GPS device to a new, do-everything model of the latest iPhone. He spends most of our drive up to the cottage demonstrating the many functions of the device, things that we definitely cannot live without. “If I press this button, you will know exactly where you are.”
“I’ve made this drive thousands of times,” I say sarcastically. “I could do it with my eyes closed.” Useless technology, I am thinking.
“Ah, but did you know that if you turn right up here you will find a rural liquor store that the device tells me is carrying a rare bottle of thirty-year-old single malt, one I would like to purchase to enjoy on the dock this evening?” I wheel the truck to the right wondering how I ever survived without this wonderful little phone.
“It warns you when there is police radar ahead,” he later tells me. I confidently press down on the gas pedal, and almost immediately roar by a hidden speed trap. “But I believe this function works only in Europe,” he adds. “But thankfully, it is the policeman that now has his eyes closed.”
A radio scan device is the most intriguing function of Alain’s gadget, and allows for hours of entertainment while driving. When a song comes on the radio, Inspector Gadget holds the device in front of the speakers. It then lets you know who the singer or band is and the name of the song. This allows for a challenging trivia game, one that I am confident I can actually win, as “The Moose” does not play much Swiss music. Well, I would have won until Alain and Nicole correctly guess someone named Francine Jordi after a nauseating pop love song graces the airwaves. I find out later that Alain had used his fancy device for its main purpose, and had phoned in a music request to the station.
He catches me singing along with an Eagles tune and holds the phone close to me like a microphone. I mistakenly think that he is admiring my vocal talents and wondering why I never had any success in becoming a famous rock singer.
“Ah, it recognizes you,” he states in all seriousness. “Someone called the Chipmunks.”
We arrive at the lake just before dusk, and the bugs appear, out in full force. Blackflies fill the sky like clouds, like smoke from a raging bonfire, rising and swirling. I ask Inspector Gadget to help me guide the boat into the lake. “Find a gadget to keep them away,” I snicker under my breath.
I hop out to tie the boat to the dock, and I am immediately attacked by a swarm of hungry flies. They do not seem to be bothering my friend. “Your pocket device you carry also has a certain scent that attracts these little flies,” Alain laughs. “Therefore they leave me alone.”
I ask if I can hold his little phone, and then I push him into the frigid spring waters of the lake. He squeals with a start and I’m shrilly reprimanded in Swiss. I hold up his gadget. “Brittany Spears!” it says.
The Boyfriend Cometh
It finally happened. After years of close calls, a daughter’s pleading and begging shot down by my excuses and fast talking, the boyfriend is here at the cottage for a week. My oldest daughter tells me that they have been “going together” for over a year now, something that is equivalent to dating apparently, and it was a momentous occasion that he actually remembered and celebrated by giving her a bouquet of very pretty flowers — the little jerk!
“James, you never give me flowers,” is my wife’s reaction. I try to explain that the flowers were just part of his well thought out plan to get to our cottage — sneaky, that’s what it is. My wife isn’t listening to my conspiracy theory, though she suddenly thinks he is a sweetie. Flowers, apparently, change everything. So, when my daughter asks me again, for the umpteenth time, about a cottage visit for her beau, I know my cause is lost.
Now here he is, floating around our little bay on an air mattress with my little girl — he in his fancy board shorts, her in her mini-bikini. “You look like you might be burning,” I yell out to her after she has been lying in the sun for about thirty seconds. “It might be time to cover up!”
In response, my darling wife sends me off with a long list of chores to occupy my mind, her way of telling me to leave the lovebirds alone. I split some logs at the woodshed, hacking through knotted maple that had, until now, defeated my attempts. All the while I devise a plan, an evil plan, to deal with this problem.
“Who wants to go water-skiing?” I ask, returning to the dock carrying skis and rope. Apparently it is the first time for him. “It’s easy,” I tell him. “Just don’t let go of the rope.” I have him bouncing back off his butt on his first try, and then he gets yanked forward, torpedoing through the water, the lake filling up his gaping mouth. I look over at my daughter, who is spotting, hoping that she is horrified at seeing him in such an unflattering pose, but see that she is laughing and clapping and encouraging him to try again. On his third attempt, he is up, and bobbing unsteadily in the wake. I take him careening through the stumps and deadheads of Prop-Twister Channel, but see that he is gaining in confidence and ability, so I reluctantly drop him back safely at our dock. Everyone is cheering and congratulating him.
“Who wants to go cliff jumping?” I ask, before he has time to even dry off. I take the group up the lake to a neighbouring island, and a seven-metre sheer cliff we used to call “Jumper’s Folly.” I send the boyfriend up first. My own kids try to point out that they’ve never been here before, but I shut them out by saying, “When I was your age, we jumped off here all the time!” What I didn’t mention was, A: We were idiots, and B: The lake water was extremely low this summer.
“I can see the bottom,” he seems to be yelling from far above. “It doesn’t look that deep!”
“Just clear water,” I yell back. “Lots of depth.” He plunges into the lake. My family all claps. “Okay, it looks fine,” I say, sounding slightly dejected. “Anyone else want to give it a try?” They all do, and then try to shame me into jumping — I’m forced to play the bad back card.
Speaking of cards, I have only one left to play: I’ve held back the ace. Once back to our island, I have a private conference with my obnoxious youngest daughter, and easily convince her to follow the young couple around, hounding him and sitting between them whenever possible. I fully expect him to crack now, and hitchhike back home at any moment, but he hangs in there — no, worse, he seems to be enjoying himself.
I’ve tried to challenge him, and I’ve been defeated. It pains me, my loss to this flower-giving dolt, until I realize that I wasn’t really competing against the boyfriend, I was up against our cottage. The magical lure of the place has helped him survive the skiing, jumping ,and devilish youngest daughter, all the sinister obstacles that I’d thrown at him. The cottage has won.
I bring two beers to the dock, hand one over, clink bottles, and offer up a hearty, “Welcome to our cottage!”
Of Doorbells, Docking, and Mishaps in the Night
We call it our doorbell. When we have visitors to our island cottage they are instructed, upon arrival at the mainland landing, to park by the lake and shine their headlights across the mile stretch of water towards our place. This is our signal for pickup. We can peer across with our binoculars and decide whether we should run across in the boat, or hide and pretend we aren’t there. We usually have a pretty good idea about who is coming and when they might arrive, so we keep an eye out for lights.
This is especially important for after-dark arrivals. I remember such a time when we were teenagers; my sister had hitched a ride with some girlfriends in a Volkswagen Beetle. Following procedure, upon reaching the lake they pulled down to the water and put their high beams on. My dad hopped in the runabout and sped off to retrieve the guests.
Two things went wrong during that crossing. First, my dad has always enjoyed driving the boat with a bit of a flourish. He liked to roar into th
e dock with speed, spin the wheel to the starboard, and, as his port side sidled up to the dock, spin the wheel the other way and throw it into reverse. The boat would settle into a perfect docking position, and he would leap jauntily out to tie the lines to cleats as the wide-eyed onlookers attempted to catch their collective breaths. He was very skilled at it, and it was impressive when it worked. He must have thought my usual docking method very boring indeed. I would cut back the engine with the dock barely in view, idle the boat in slowly, angling it towards the pier, turn to the starboard, cut the engine and let the wake, wind, and waves gently nudge the boat sideways into position. Then I would yell instructions to awaken my shipmates: “Tie-off, secure the lines, put out the bumpers!”
The second problem on this night came when the girls, their gear unloaded and on the dock, and having seen the boat lights depart the island, decided it expedient to back the car up to the parking area some hundred metres back from shore, while leaving the car headlights on. Unfortunately, the boat driver was using the lights as a reference point on this dark night, and thought the vehicle remained on the water’s edge.
From the end of the dock, my sister watched the boat go by at a good speed. At first she thought that her dad was simply performing his usual skilled docking manoeuvre. When he didn’t slow down, she realized the error in parking the car. Dad saw the oncoming dark outline of land too late, and cut the engine — the runabout roared up on the gravel shore like a stunt from a James Bond thriller. Thankfully, nobody was hurt in the fancy boat beaching, and it was easier to load the gear. The girls were wowed by my sister’s super-secret-agent father, and just assumed this was the usual pickup method, said hello and thanks, pushed the boat back into the lake, and hopped in for the trip to the island.
Yes, I prefer the cautious approach while my dad likes to handle the boat with a bit more pizzazz. My brother-in-law aces the docking, but has a harder time pulling away from our dock. He doesn’t like to reverse, so tends to curl the boat in towards shore when leaving and, in doing so, manages to mangle props on the granite ledge that dips into the lake. He is kind of an artist, a sculptor with metal, bending the blades into all kinds of fanciful shapes, making me a regular patient of the Prop Doc.
I was exploring the Trent–Severn waterway recently when I ran across the master of all dockers. We waited inside Lock 45 for a late arrival, a marvellous, if slightly scuffed-up, mid-sized yacht. The husband was the skipper, shouting out orders to his wife, the first mate, as he bounced in off the walls of the narrow lock. The Parks Canada attendants tried in earnest to get the boat under control with long metal hooks, and other boaters already in the lock tried to help, or perhaps to just protect their own vessels. Rather than simply learn to drive his elegant craft, the skipper had felt it more prudent to invest in huge, bell-shaped bumpers that were hung judiciously off his port and starboard sides, springing him to and fro. He hollered orders to all in the vicinity, which when mixed with the screaming and shouted advice of others, added to the general chaos.
“Come on, Mabel,” he barked to his first mate. “Make yourself useful, grab the cable, push off that little dingy!” (That hurt — for it was my pontoon boat.) When the game of bumper boats subsided and the attendants, cleaners, lawn maintenance crew, and casual observers at Lock 45 had returned to what they were doing before the excitement, the skipper added, “Well, Mabel, you’re finally getting the hang of it eh?”
In retrospect, I decided, we handle our boats fairly well.
A Cottage Dunking
It has become a cottage tradition at our cabin, a fairly recent ritual, started by the younger generation. When someone is celebrating a birthday, they get hauled out of their comfortable bed in the early morning hours and carried down in their pajamas to the end of the dock by their flailing arms and legs. There, on the count of three, they are swung high and tossed out into the clear blue lake.
The kids rise early to help or to watch, and the dogs join in, attracted by the fuss. It is like an excited mob surrounding the procession, moving on from the cottage or the bunkie down to the dock, all the while singing an unpleasant rendition of “Happy Birthday.” Then the toss is made, and the ceremony ends with a lot of laughter and birthday salutations.
The victims of the dunking may put up the pretence of a fight, or even feign anger, but they secretly love the tradition. They know it is coming. Sometimes, they will sneak to bed the night before in their bathing suits, to be properly attired for the morning swim. Once in a while they might try to rise early and hide, but on a three-acre island, with a bevy of children who know all the good hiding spots and a couple of dogs (including my sister’s bloodhound) available for the hunt, there is no escape. They eventually end up in the drink.
It is not just the dunking that makes a cottage birthday fun, the location provides a lovely family atmosphere in which to celebrate. Grandma weaves her magic and artistry in making original and wonderful cakes, each unique for their recipient. Her creations in the propane stove are impressive. As are the dinners, which are usually specially ordered, and the favourite of the birthday boy or girl.
My second daughter’s special day falls in late July when the extended family is usually gathered, so her soaking is overseen by a large mob. My sister’s three boys all have summer birthdays, as does her husband, and even though their size makes them a little more challenging to wrangle into the water, we always have the wherewithal. My oldest gets her dunking in early September, when the lake water is appreciably colder. I get off lucky, because if anyone decided to toss me off the dock on the date of my early spring birthday, I would no doubt bounce off the ice.
Two of my children have winter birthdays, and though we try to make it up to them by planning fancy parties at home with their friends, they regret the fact that they miss celebrating their special day at the cottage, with the whole family around.
“I wish I was born in the summer,” moans my youngest daughter, seemingly blaming me for my foolish family planning. “I never get thrown in the lake!” I toss her in to appease her, but it’s just not the same.
Grandma’s birthday falls in August, and although there may be jokes played, the public dunking is not one of them. Not that she couldn’t handle the forced swim, as she still partakes in her daily dip. We are all just too afraid to go there. As Grandma has long taught her grandchildren, “I don’t get mad, I get even!”
It is for that very reason, and with respect for her adage, that I will not tell you what birthday she just celebrated on the twelfth day of this month — just that it was a special one, and a milestone, and she received her usual “Grandma Reprieve” from a cottage dunking.
Those Great Cottage Days of Summer
As if to announce that the summer holidays were at an end and it was time for the kids to get back to the books, the temperature dropped to a chilly ten degrees Celsius during our last evening of the cottage before school started. This happening just a day removed from a muggy thirty degrees, a temperature which had us seeking shade and cooling off frequently in the lake.
Now I’m sitting with a steamy mug of tea in front of a fire in the cabin’s wood stove. The feel of autumn is in the air, even though it is officially a few weeks away. I love the sound of the fire in the stove and the cozy warmth of wood heat. I also find comfort in the smell of the wood smoke as it hangs above the chimney in the crisp air. The cool evening temperatures mean that the vibrant fall colours will soon be upon us. I like this time of year, but it also makes me look back with a slight feeling of melancholy. Another summer at the cottage has sped quickly past.
I am happy with what we were able to accomplish this year; many cottage chores were checked off the to-do list. We rebuilt the front porch roof and re-shingled it. We restructured the dock cribs. They had been twisted and torn by last winter’s breakup. The dock was restored, sturdy and fairly level. I had cut a new flagpole, peeling a tall, straight pine to replace the old one that had snapped off at the top during a fierce blow. We
fixed the front door of the cottage and added an airy screen door to the rear. All in all we were pleased with the maintenance and upkeep we had done.
We had also managed to have fun, even to enjoy ourselves and stay out of trouble when we were entertaining a rather large contingent of family members, nineteen in all, during the heart of the summer. More than managed — we had a delightful family time. We tackled the cottage chores together. The gentlemen wallowed around for half a day in the lake fixing the dock and then sat back with a cold beer and shared some stories. The ladies, grandmothers, and daughters and granddaughters, swam around the island together in a graceful but very noisy procession we nicknamed the synchronized swans.
We reminisced about our younger days here, and saw parallels in the play of our own kids. We swam and skied and played evening board games. We sang around the fire, and sometimes I felt like I was a kid at the cottage again — and then I was offered a nightcap before bed and was glad I wasn’t. It was an extended family visit that, I must admit, I was somewhat dreading beforehand, but in the end I was wrong. It was wonderful to have everyone gathered together at the cottage once again.
When we dropped off my youngest brother’s family at the airport for their flight back to British Columbia, their eight-year-old boy gave us all a tearful hug and sobbed sincerely to his grandpa, “I had enough fun to last me for a whole year!”
We often say to each other that the summer has disappeared far too quickly. Perhaps we are being a little greedy, for isn’t quality always better than quantity? The beauty of it is that summer days spent at the cottage are quality days, brimming with fun and laughter and friendship. They build memories and reconnect us with nature and the outdoors. The simplicity of the cottage also somehow helps us reconnect with our families, our siblings, and parents, even with our own children.
Still in a Daze at the Cottage Page 9