Month: June 2020

Any time but this one

Life can be a grind. That has always been the case, but it’s even more true as the entire world lives through a pandemic. At a time like this, simply fleeing the boundaries of our own place may not feel like enough of a respite. Why not, we might ask ourselves, abscond to another time?

The protagonists of such books as Bid Time Return by Richard Matheson(https://www.abebooks.com/BID-TIME-RETURN/30207059856/bd?cm_ ),which may ring more bells for you as the film, Somewhere in Time, with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour, and The Lake House by David Auburn ( Remember Keanna Reeves and Sandra Bullock?) actually break the time barrier.

the real brigadoon

This is what my family and I did for fifteen summers. Well, we didn’t leave the twentieth century.  We vacationed on Mackinac Island. At the point where the two peninsula that make up the state of Michigan meet, sits a 4.5-acre island, which rises steeply on all sides to a 900-foot

pinnacle. It is also entirely car-free, and has been since 1898 — only horses and bicycles are allowed, giving the place a laid-back vibe. And for me, living without gas-engine traffic of any kind, turned my stay on Mackinac into a trip to another time. It slowed everything down. https://www.mymichiganbeach.com/mackinac

The island can only be reached by boat. For my family that meant taking the ferry that ran almost continuously during the days and evenings. A valet drove our minivan to storage while we wheeled our bikes and dragged our suitcases aboard. Also, loaded for us were the boxes of groceries we had purchased in Mackinac City. Island groceries were expensive and sparse. Settled aboard, I climbed to the third deck and stood at the bow. As the boat sped across the strait the cool north winds played havoc with my hair and my spirits lifted. I squinted my eyes to catch a minuscule glimpse of Gallery House, the cottage that would be our home for the next three weeks. And then the ferry rounded the island and the harbor jam-packed with sailboats appeared. Behind them white-frame buildings, set in higher and higher rows, formed a gleaming welcome on three sides.

brave old world

From the moment I wheeled my bike down the ramp, I was forced to accept that the blueprint for how I usually planned my days could not structure my next three weeks.  Rather, I literally lived the pace of another time, a time before my grandmothers had been born.

Just to start, the ‘cottage’ (on Mackinac Island even very grand mansions are referred to as “cottages.”) where we would be living was near the top of the island and a couple miles beyond the harbor town. Getting our suitcases and groceries to the house meant hiring a horse drawn wagon. I stood guard over our belongings and our kids while Jay headed to the street to hail a wagon driver.  If we were lucky, it didn’t take too long.  But it always seemed to take long enough for the children to spot the ice-cream vendor. Mackinac like many other American tourist destination is “famous” for its fudge, but it’s extremely creamy ice-cream is every bit as delicious.

a friend of a friend is a friend indeed

The first year we arrived we had had no idea what to expect in terms of our accommodations.  One of Jay’s business associates, Len’s wife worked with a woman who had recently inherited her uncle’s place on the island. She rented it out for most of the summer. Len and his wife Sue couldn’t afford the rent on their own and asked if we’d consider sharing. We decided to give it a chance.

From the directions, I originally thought we’d be staying close to the town. Sue said to let the lorry driver know we were staying at the Gallery House in the Annex.  He would know where that was. I pictured a house somehow attached to one of the many art galleries in town.  But once we were all seated on the benches at the front of the wagon, our horses clip-clopped right past all the Front Street buildings and turned to go up the hill.  They trotted past a beautiful golf course. As we arrived at the entrance to the Grand Hotel with its 660-foot porch, a guard stopped us.  The driver explained we were on our way to the Gallery House and the guard waved us through.  Jay and I looked at one another and shrugged our shoulders.  This was interesting.

beyond grandeur

The kids loved the hotel and spotted its swimming pool.  I disappointed them. “No, we’re not staying here.” I didn’t know at that point that passes to the hotel pool came with our cottage. Just past the porch of the hotel, the road rose steeply. To the left a sheer drop to Lake Huron far below and on the left stately gleaming white Victorian mansions with wide-sweeping verandas sat on spacious lawns – the cottages of the West Bluff, summer homes of wealthy Detroit and Chicago families. When we turned away from the bluff, we could see that each cottage had not a garage, but a stable and the horsey smell that had assaulted our nostrils the minute we stepped off the ferry became stronger yet. Another left turn took us down a gravel road between more lovely homes, though not as grand as those on the West Bluff. Many of these were half-hidden by tall oaks. Then the driver swung the wagon to the right once more and stopped.

In the middle of an enormous expanse of deep green grass stood a yellow clapboard house. Its proportions were more modest than those of most of the abodes we had gone by, but its lines were charming. A screened-in porch, scattered with wicker furniture, ran around three sides of the house. Rising narrowly from the porch roof, four deep eaves defined the second story. “Here you are,” the driver said. “The Gallery House.”

The children scrambled down from the wagon and ran across the lawn. As Jay, the driver and I unloaded box after suitcase after bag onto the ground, I could hear the sound of the children’s footsteps pounding on wooden floor boards. Shouts of, “This one’s mine,” alert me to bedroom claims. I felt like my whole body was smiling. I stopped unloading and gave Jay a hug. “Looks like we’re home,” I said.

time for everything

Our days fell into a restorative rhythm. Family members rose anytime they wished in the mornings and fetched their own breakfast from the large pantry just off the kitchen. Always a lark, I was the first one out of bed, settled happily on the front porch with a book and a cup of coffee at least an hour before the stairs creaked with the sounds of anyone else’s footsteps. Jay alternated between sleeping through breakfast and rising quite early to meet friends at the Grand Hotel golf course for an early game. Having discovered the passes to the swimming pool, the kids most often biked down to the hotel in the morning. Sometimes, however, they biked into town to the stables to rent horses to ride the back roads of the island. I spread my time out over biking, shopping and exploring the museums.

By ordinance, no Mackinac restaurants or shops could be franchises of chains, so eating out was a pleasurable adventure.  Whether we ate lunch or dinner at the cottage or at one of the dozens of “eating places,” as Kristy had called restaurants since toddler days, depended on whether the fleet was in or not.

yo ho ho

The three weeks, which we spent on Mackinac each summer, coincided

with the “Mac”. “The Chicago Yacht Club Race to Mackinac … is one of the world’s largest annual offshore races, drawing top-notch sailing talent from around America and the world. Known as ‘The Mac’ to everyone in the region, the 333-statute mile (289 nautical mile) the race typically starts each July just off Chicago’s Navy Pier and finishes at Mackinac Island, Michigan.” (https://www.cycracetomackinac.com/news/article/chicago-yacht-club-announces-cancellation-of-2020-race-to-mackinac) {The race was called off this year for the first time in one hundred years.  The last time it was called off was 1920 due to pressures of World War I.)

It was a glorious time to be on the island. The last of the race, we gathered in town in front of the yacht club tent, where the race was

being monitored. Watching the boats come flying in for the final stretch of the race was heart-thumping. Almost always, the yachts unfurled

their spinnakers, the large three-cornered sail, set forward of the mainsail, bulging and full, running before the wind as they passed under the Mackinac Bridge. The harbor filled with boat after boat. Hundreds of weary, but elated, sailors filled the streets and taverns of the town. Walking down Front Street was a stroll through the dioramas of Disneyland’s Pirates of the Caribbean.

Most decisively it was a time to eat “at home.” We saved our dinners out for the quieter days when the sailors took their boats to other harbors.

nothing lasts forever

When our three weeks on the island came to an end, we packed reluctantly. Thoroughly accustomed to “island time,” we envied the wealthy families for whom this was a summer-long experience. We never adjusted easily to being home again.  The sounds and pace of the twentieth century are jarring when encountered overnight. We did, of course, acclimate to automobile traffic, alarm clocks, and work timetables. We could fine-tune our sensibilities by comforting ourselves with the promise that next summer would come.  And next summer would bring a return to another time.

If you could travel to any time you chose, when would it be?

“People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but *actually* from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint – it’s more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly… time-y wimey… stuff.”
― Steven Moffat

https://www.radiotimes.com/news/tv/2020-02-15/steven-moffat-time-travellers-wife-doctor-who/

one way to escape

During June, the month when we traditionally break our routines, venture away from our familiar abodes, and explore new territory, I’ve been blogging on the theme of escape. More specifically I’ve been reminiscing about long ago getaways to destination near and far.  The weeks and weeks of “social distancing” and “sheltering at home” that are my present reality lend a luster to these past adventures they may not have held at the time.

In this week devoted to commemorating fathers (because surely a single day doesn’t suffice), memories of my father, John De Jager, fuse effortlessly with thoughts of escape from the everyday. My dad loved a good road trip.  I could write an entire memoir about those vacations to all parts of the United States and Canada. This blog, however, is focused on the years after I met Jay Ward, my husband and the Love Lessons I learned in the decades of our relationship.

the ultimate getaway

The two narratives merge not on a road trip, but at Dad’s Cabin. A tiny one

bedroom, clapboard cottage, it sat under enormous pine trees on a small ridge overlooking Devil’s Lake in Webster, Wisconsin. Despite its diminutive size, there were many nights when as many as ten folks slept under its roof.   Built in the 1940s as one in a cluster of cabins rented out by the week, the cabin had few amenities when my father acquired it.

Given our penchant for hitting the road at the drop of a hat, Jay and I set out for northwest Wisconsin to investigate Dad’s new purchase the weekend after he bought it in 1967. He warned us we’d find it primitive.  That whetted our appetite.  It would be an adventure as well as a chance to shake off the doldrums of the urban grind.

For once, we contented ourselves with sticking to the main highways and followed Interstate 95 until we headed north at Eau Claire.  As our Blue Fiat Spider sped down the exit ramp, we turned to each other and grinned – new territory!

the other real world

Promising sights greeted us as we veered north. The road curved up and over hills, sometimes lined with giant conifers and at other place giving sweeping views of wide valleys covered with a checkerboard of fields. Urban dwellers to our core, the only crop we could identity with any surety were the tall, waving stalks of corn, but we soaked up the diverse colors, shapes and sizes of other plantings and made random guesses – soybeans? Broccoli? Rice? Wheat?  Yes, that’s right, we had no idea what wheat, that stable of our daily diet, looked like as it grew in a field.  Farm fields were fairylands to us, enchanted places from which came the bounty that appeared on the shelves of our friendly grocery.  We knew, of course, that it involved hours of hard work rather than waving magic wands. That didn’t stop it from being a marvel to our eyes.

A little past noon, just outside the small town of Rice Lake we pulled up to the speaker at a drive-in and ordered our meal to go.  We had noted that the road periodically offered a wayside, a small turnout with a picnic table next to a parking space, often in conjunction with the historical markers of which we had become so fond. Less than ten minutes out of town, we are our meal at a table that felt like it was on the top of the world. Farms fields, scattered woods, and small lakes splashed the scene with a variety of blues, greens, yellows and browns.

much less traveled

We turned into a windy, rutted road a mile outside Webster about two hours

later. Periodically dirt driveways broke off from the road. Worn wooden signs

nailed to leaning posts marked most of them, but it was getting toward evening and the heavy overhang of leafy trees made it hard to read the lettering. Finally, we saw it. 8999 Devil’s Lake Road and turned in. Our car pitched forward down a steep incline. “Whoa,” Jay exclaimed and slammed on the brakes. He then slowly inched his foot off them to let the car slide forward. The drive ended at a slightly wider spot, bordered by tall oaks.

I pulled a flashlight from the glove compartment and we followed a stone path to a rusty-colored wood cabin.  It sat in darkness, but just beyond the sun was slipping behind the far shore of the lake. Brilliant oranges, golds, and reds streamed across the sky and bounced back off the surface of the water. We hurried to get a better look and tried our luck walking one step at a time onto the rickety dock.  It held, and we held each other.  In flat, crowded Chicago, sunsets were not easy to come by.

amenities not included

The dusk settled in and we went back to search for the key to the cabin, left in a flower pot. Pushing through the door, I groped for a light switch, found it, and flipped it.  A single bulb hanging from the rafters lit the interior just well enough that we wouldn’t bump into the furnishings. These were meager in the extreme. A large round oak table stood under the light. Four chairs surrounded it. A big stone fireplace covered most of the far wall with two battered, upholstered chairs squeezed in on either side of it. A low archway led into a minute room just past one of the chairs, a gold, nubby piece. Four strides took me over, but I needed the flashlight to see the bed which filled the space.

“Look at this,” Jay called. Back in the main room, he was pointing to the ornate, iron stove, which I was relieved to see had a pilot light glowing in the middle.  But, wait. Where was the sink?

“There’s no kitchen sink,” I told him unnecessarily.

“Got that,” he nodded.  “Your dad said we get water from the pump and heat it up on the stove for washing the dishes.”

“Oh, my gosh, I feel like I’m on ‘Little House on the Prairie.’”

“I’m pretty sure they didn’t have electric lights and gas stoves.”

“Well, you know what I mean.”

conquering the pump

“Yah, just teasing.  Better get some water.  You’ll have to hold the flashlight for me.”

The rusty pump was anchored in a cement block to the side of the cabin. A bucket sat under the spout. Jay grabbed the handle, raised it high in the air, and yanked it down. Nothing. I panicked a little.  Were we going to be without water? He tried again. Same result. “It must be broken,” he said.  “We’ll have to call your dad tomorrow and let him know.”

If you’re giggling or murmuring, “City slickers,” at this point, you have good cause.  Sure enough when we called my dad the next morning from the drugstore in Webster, we could almost see him shake his head in disgust as he told us, “You have to prime the pump first.” And then he had to explain what “priming” was.

No running water inside also meant, of course, no bathroom.  We availed ourselves of the outhouse with as much grace as possible.  We should have known after all.  In any case, the dozens of National Geographics that dad had stored there at least made the trip educational.

been there, done that!

When we headed back to Chicago on Sunday evening, we were different people than the couple who had headed up the road on Friday. The transformation was subtle and not immediately apparent, but real just the same. After that time, we took ordinary life less for granted and more for the blessing it was. But we also trusted ourselves more than ever to get through tough things together with grace, humility and humor.

Over that summer, my dad and brothers worked long hours at Devil’s Lake to modernize and expand the cabin. My mother had a grand time hitting the thrift stores so that she could “doll it up.”

north by northwest

Over the next forty years, Jay and I and our children made many treks to the cabin. No place equaled it for bringing family together.  The sandy beach and shallow shore allowed even very small children to play there safely.  But the lake was also big enough and deep enough for adults and bigger kids to enjoy boating, fishing and water sports. And in the evenings, all ages gathered around the big table to play games, enjoy the crackle of the fireplace and be grateful for the gift of family.

What was your best way to reconnect with family once you were an adult and living away from home?  I’d love to hear your stories.

“I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren’t trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.” ― Umberto Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum   https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/178037-i-believe-that-what-we-become-depends-on-what-our