We're hurdling down I77 towards Winston Salem and I'm listen to the soothing tones of The Hamster Dance or Crazy Frog for the fiftieth time. Soft giggling comes from the back of the car and even though it's early for it my thoughts turn to... murder. My wife has already shown signs of mental deterioration from these hellish songs having handed me two baby carrots for the toll on the West Virginia Turnpike. By the time I turn left at Winston Salem all is quiet and I adjust myself, my lower back has started to complain. This is no time for weakness I've now entered the hard hard hours, there's no turning back now, no justification for a hotel. I glance at the Tom-Tom and sigh inwardly, our ETA is 2:30am.
We actually arrive at 2am my wife vainly struggling to keep awake, which was her job. I get the occasional soft pat on my right shoulder and a murmured, "You're doing great," before she's back in dreamland. I smile, it's enough. I think about those who were here before me and have moved on to meet their Maker. The one's who shaped me, molded me. There are very few of them left. I try not to get morose over such thoughts but I can't help but miss them. The cottage for me is something much more than just a place to unwind, it's iconic. I try to honor them with some sense of continuity.
I get up around 6:30am, because - in my opinion this place is at it's best at that time of day, cool, no wind and second because there are ten million birds just singing their fool heads off which aids in getting up early. The lake is still and my back hurts from the drive. I try not to think of what theElectrician told me, "Beeeel, once you hit fifty it's allll down hill." I guess that's when the suck factor clicks up a notch, or two. I'm feeling it this morning as I piddle about the back yard unlocking sheds and getting things ready to get ready. We have to get the boat in the water (a 1963 Fabuglas I'll have you know, truly a babe magnet) and bring the dock in. The lake is at a perfect height.
Getting the boat in turns out to be no biggie but moving the dock turned into a big pain in the butt. Mainly it was the ropes around the cleat, I had to get a screwdriver and a hammer to finally get the rope loosened up. Then we decided to go to Skippers, a local barbecue place before heading into Walmart for food. Our objective was to NOT go into town the following day.
We get to Skippers in some weird fugue state and stumble over to a booth. A waitress strolls over asking what we want in that peculiar Henderson accent which is a cross between the traditional Southern drawl and mumbling through your nose for the proper pitch of nasal. It's impossible for a non-native to duplicate. The kids ask for lemonade while my wife and I opt of sweet tea. The waitress then asks what we want, she starts by mentioning the specials. My wife is having none of it. She's hungry, staring balefully up at the waitress she growls out, "Trout!" cutting the waitress off, who stares at her in confusion.
"You want the trout special?"
"Yes. Trout!" nodding her head in agreement.
Dear Lord she's been here less than a day and she's already been reduced to monosyllables. My wife barely manages to select her two side dishes before staring vacantly off into the distance. I'm feeling it too, the drive and the boat took more out of us then we realized. While we wait for the food we decide to head back to the cottage and nap before braving Walmart. I can't say if this is a typical small town Walmart or not but it is literally the store here. It's always crowded at any time of day. Having a collective meltdown there would not be good.
After our nap we get through the Walmart gauntlet and break out the minibike upon our return. While sitting on the front porch I watch the purple martins frolic in the field in front of the lake. Can that little bird be my salvation? Their young look like bats the way they dart about eating insects. They only eat insects in flight; in other words if the bug isn't flying it has nothing to fear from a purple martin. Mosquitoes hate them.
The martin has been gone for quite awhile from the cottage and this is the first year they've been back. My dad and I are excited about this but they, along with the blue bird require open fields to raise their young and eat. The Army Corp of Engineers does not like my open field and is requiring me to plant trees at twenty-five feet apart to "restore the lake to the way nature intended it."That's one of my favorite quotes that came from a conversation I had with a Corp park ranger a few years ago. I cocked my head at him and replied, "If you want to restore this area to the way nature intended it then knock down that dam! This entire situation is artificial."
This retort fell upon deaf ears. They've commissioned a 'study' and now are executing their 'plan.' I will resist in my typical passive aggressive manner but like I told the park ranger that visited when I was down there, "I'm having difficulty paying for (approximately $2,000), maintaining and planting sixty trees that I don't want to plant on land I don't own. This will go one of two ways, either we can reach some sort of accord or you'll pay and plant them."
The Corp has gotten goofy. A neighbor was issued a warning when he moved some lake sand eight feet from one area of his 'beach' to another. They're confused so I begin to cling to a glimmer of a hope that if I can get the blue bird and purple martin societies involved they may back down.
The next day I'm up and about puttering around. I have a nasty cough and my lower back is in pain from the drive I presume. I'm gulping down coffee and trying to cope but needless to say I don't feel good. My wife gets up and we head out for our morning three mile walk to the goat farm and back. As we amble along (look I'm on vacation, back hurts and I'm cranky so back off on the 'pushing it' thing) we pick up a cute beagle puppy from a nearby cottage named Bentley. He decides to walk along with us.
As we near our turning around point I can hear the goats bleating across the field. I "baa" back and get an angry "baa" in return. I repeat my call and the goat's retort rises across octaves, volume and rage to a full throated shriek. My wife giggles but this is no laughing matter for the goat who is not in the mood for my crap at this hour of the morning. We head back for breakfast.
My daughter shyly asks if she can ride the minibike. Sure. She's eleven and old enough and strong enough to handle the beast. I explain some of the basics, start it and send her off down the hill. A few minutes later I hear,
"Dad, I can't TURN!!!"
She's glaring at me as if it's my fault. She's facing south, or left to right as you face the lake. I stroll towards her yelling, "What?" so she can hear me through her helmet over the engine noise.
"I can't TURN!" she bellows back defiantly.
I motion for her to just head on the way she's pointed and walk around to the other side of the cabin. She's now facing the opposite way she was going her face clouded by frustration.
"I can't TURN!!!"
I point out to her that somehow she managed to turn around and face the direction she just came from. I receive a pitying stare, one I'm certain to see a lot of for the next decade or so. I just don't get it! She ups the throttle and rides off. She spent most of the day on that bike, finally running it out of gas in the late afternoon. Coasting down the hill towards me as we head back up from the lake she bellows, "Dad, I'M OUT OF GAS!"
"Well stop coasting down the hill since you're gonna have to push that bike back up it to get more!"
Our neighbor took us out on 'Big Mable' a large chair that floats on the lake. He pulled my son and me all over the place in his nice boat and I introduced my son to 'drag.' My son is almost all legs so he was entertaining himself by sticking his foot over the port bow spraying water in my face. This is annoying to the middle aged male.
"Do you know what drag is?" I ask him solemnly.
"What?" he asks, not sure if he heard me correctly.
I reach over and shove his foot into the lake and he is gone. Problem solved.
That night I was visited by night sweats. I've got this upper respiratory cough going on, my back is hurting like no tomorrow and around 2AM I begin shivering like I'm in the antarctic. I'm shaking hard, covered in sweat for about two minutes. An interesting experience that I don't want to repeat but do the next night.
That morning I'm stumbling around the back yard with a cup of coffee when my neighbor comes over. We both end up staring at this crab apple tree that IronMan and myself were eying on an earlier visit. It's right next to the power line to the cottage, in the final stages of dying of old age and has to go.
A gleam comes into my neighbor's eye, "Wanna take it out?"
"Mmhmm."
And thus were our fates sealed. The families assemble, well the adults anyway - some of the kids were still in dreamland or laying low avoiding work. The first major branch came off piece of cake. We got cocky. I'm tugging hard on the rope while my neighbor cuts the tree low to the ground so that a mower can pass over it. It starts to fall the right way, or it feels like that but then just plops over on the power line, ripping half of it from the cottage with a loud, "POP!." The cottage looses half it's power including the AC and refrigerators. I hop on the phone to the electric company and fess up. They issue a 'high priority ticket' which should have a repair truck over directly.
Meanwhile outside Felony is directing the clean up. If you read my blog at all you know that isn't her real name. Let's just say that the boat dock license is in her name so she gets the warnings from the Army Corp of Engineers whenever her husband irritates them, which is a lot apparently. Within twenty minutes, using tractors, teenagers and rakes all that is remaining is the stump.About two hours later, while I'm cutting my sister's field the truck pulls up. As the repair man is walking back from turning off power at the transformer I blurt out, "Look, for the record, Felony had NOTHING to do with this!"
He looks both amused and confused, "Who?"
Never mind. He's one of the few people in the state who hasn't heard of her, it's best to keep that way or he'll probably bill me double for this fiasco. Still on the bright side it happened when folk were here so we could deal with it as opposed to some less manageable time.
The actual repair wasn't too bad, nothing I could do but not too awful thank Heavens. He then pulls me aside and says, "You're suppose to be billed for this so I'm going to have to fill out a form 1149." I'm thinking this must be the famous The Owner was an Idiot form. Staring directly into my eyes he says, "Now as long as you don't send something into the electric company saying that this power outage ruined your TV or anything like that this form will just sit in my drawer."
I ask him where I sign. Apparently nowhere, he just fills it out. I found it incredibly generous of him, after all it was entirely my fault.
The days blend together. My parents, aunt and two additional teenage girls show up at some point. Mostly the days would break down into a morning ski session trying to get my daughter up on skis. She tried on five separate days but had no luck this trip. My wife would ski, she does love it so. There would be morning walks to the goat farm and back of about three miles. Puttering around the lake on the Fabuglas, shooting off fireworks, potato guns, BB guns, and rockets. I had only one more visit from the night sweats and I started taking Aleve which helped with my lower back. The kids would all gather in the evening and play Pictionary or card games, afternoons were skiing and food too good to say no to. On the last night we took a lovely pontoon boat ride over to the local fireworks and watched them from the boat. That was a lot of fun.
Suddenly, as if waking startled from a dream, I'm in the car nearing home when my son awakens from a nap during the tedious drive back and blearily glancing around says, "Why are we HERE?!"I don't know but I'm glad for the time we had in North Carolina.
See ya in the gym!
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