At The Lake
Dear Reader,
My grandparents have been a part of the lakes in Southern Minnesota since before they were married. The story goes that they met on a lake: Papa was a lifeguard and Gram pretended to drown in order to get his attention. They recently celebrated their 50th anniversary, and they’ve owned a piece of land on Bass Lake outside of Winnebago, MN for at least forty of those years.
I recently saw a home video of myself as a two-year-old playing at “The Lake.” I was struck by how virtually unchanged the place is, twenty years later. The kids jumping off the dock are different, but the dock, the deck chairs and the music playing are exactly the same.
I consider this paper to be unfinished. My goals as I started to write were to capture a sense of place, but also embark on a project of family history. My experience of “The Lake” is not the same as my dad’s, or my aunt and uncles, or people like my mom who married into the Stenzel family. My experience will not be exactly the same as my younger cousins who are just getting to know the place. I hope to continue adding to this piece, considering different perspectives as I go.
This is a start.
Emily Somers
March 12, 2009
(MAP)
Help wanted:
Able-bodied men, young and old, to assist in putting in and taking out the dock. Must have memorial Day and Labor day weekends available. Must be willing to take orders from more senior members of the Stenzel family without complaint.
(PHOTO)
The fourth of July
Fireworks shot from the dock
Grammy oohs and ahs
Did you know?
Bullheads, a species of catfish, are common in lakes with low oxygen and muddy conditions. It is estimated that species of bullhead have existed for more than 30 million years.
Bullheads are easy fish to catch, and are often caught accidentally by anglers pursuing other types of fish. Once caught, however, care must be taken to remove the fish from the hook because bullheads have venomous spines that are likely to damage your hands.
The appropriate method to remove the hook is to cover the fish with a towel and use pliers to pull the hook out, but if no such materials are available it is also an option to swing the fish on the line against the dock until the hook dislodges itself or the fish dies.
What I Found While Cleaning Out Shed #3
16 open containers of Miracle-Gro
5 nozzles for the hose, 4 of them broken
2 broom handles with nothing on them
Several thousand nails, scattered in boxes and buckets
8 half empty cans of deck stain
7 paintbrushes, 5 of them still usable
34 wooden paint stirrers
11 lengths of rope
103 trash bag ties
2 rusting aluminum milk canisters
23 abandoned wasp's nests
6 dustpans full of dead Asian beetles
1 stack of newspapers from 1998
12 empty aerosol cans of bug spray
42 unidentifiable pieces of hardware
1/2 inch of dust
3 bags of garbage to secretly throw away
1 glimpse into the minds of my grandparents
How to Build a Fire: An impatient man's guide
by Pete Somers
1. Pile a few logs inside the firepit.
2. Carefully pour gasoline over the logs.
3. Herd all small children and animals away from the firepit.
4. Make a comment dismissing the "Boy Scout Method."
5. Light a match.
6. Toss flaming match onto the logs.
7. Check that both eyebrows are still there.
ufos
When the campfire flames are no longer leaping,
only licking gentle at the logs,
it's time for ufos.
"You-foes? What? Do you mean U.F.O.s?"
I'd like to think there's some kind of science lesson
in smoothing out a sheet of newspaper,
twisting the corners together,
folding,
prodding,
inflating
a hot air balloon covered in movie listings.
It happens just after you rest the craft
atop a glowing orange log.
After the flames catch it,
it's loss or liftoff,
fight or flight.
On lucky nights
the breeze abducts the crumbling orb
with a shiver.
Breathless,
we watch it rise slowly toward the moon.
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