Lake Ways

Fish House

Go to gray shack fish house. Dad knocks them out so they don’t feel a thing. Scale them with crispy ringy sound, which they fly in hair eyes mouth like Ro’s little fingernails.

Cut off head and tail and slit them open. I always have scaled but never yet slit.

Inside all different shiny lumps of yellow blue white red gray.

Sometimes he opens his stomach to see what he ate. Or a million of eggs.

Put good in foil and bad in newspaper and throw out.

One time Skip put fishhead in this iron squeezy and turned and turned ’til bones cracked and eyes popped out which he threw them at me. But I threw them back.

Back to cabin. Mom fries the good new fish in cornmeal. Eat them up.

After Dinner

After dinner Mom and Dad always go fishing alone. They never catch anything so why go but they do. Sit around, play Monopoly, Kool-Aid, Oreos.

Or squirt gun fight or draw Band-Aids and scars on all the ladies in the magazines. Or try to read in your room or draw, but cabin has no ceilings, only roof and rafters so Skip throws sopping wet Kleenex over the wall. Throw it back, but once it hit Dad coming in the door.

Get in bed. Giggle and whisper and Skip’s tennis shoe comes flying over.

“Settle down, that’s enough.”

Look out at moths wanting in or pine knots above and see things there, horsehead or hamburger, like looking at clouds till you fall asleep. Worst is if a mosquito hums right in your ear all night who won’t stop till you smash him in your own face. Which hurts but then you can sleep.

Going Into Town

Go in little town for laundry and souvenir store of Indians or dime store with beautiful horse statues. Here are other souvenirs, but don’t buy. Jim’s tomahawk said Made in Japan.

Then pile in grocery sacks, duffle of laundry, stop at Dairy Queen and drive back to cabin except this one time.

This One Time

This one time we got our laundry and Dad said, “We have our clothes. Let’s drive to Canada.” Yay!

First stop, Paul Bunyan and Babe Blue Ox statues. So high his foot was taller than my whole self.

Then Great North Woods to stop at the start of the Mighty Mississippi which you can step on stepping stones across.

Here are real Indians in teepees who I love. They make canoes and clothes I wish I had of feathers and leathers and have pretty skin like Spanish peanuts.

North and north drive into my first foreign land. Get all new money but most foreign is Juicy Fruit Gum in French.

Go to forts of French Davy Crocketts, but best is mighty beauty of Northern Lights like big gasoline across the sky.

Second Week

Soon you go home, so slow up.

Set alarm clock of my head to wake early and earlier for more time. Sneak out at blue dawn for sunrise. In rain, watch rings and wrinkles of gray water sitting on the old gray dock in your Girl Scout poncho.

All of the sudden, last day. Arms together in a row. Jim wins for brown sugar tan. Last pancakes. Last boiling water to wash dark blue glasses and flower plates I miss when we go.

Feel sorry for clothes who had vacation of no closets and drawers, just shelves and poles. Stuff green duffle bag.

Tell goodbye to Finnegan the black dog and the swallows in the cliff. Thank your lake for making twice the sky and trees and sparkles of sun like thoughts.

Then Skip squirts you grab your red squirt gun pull out stopper dump your ammo down his back. Good revenge. All his clothes are packed and has to ride in hot car with wet back. Do not sit next to him.

The way home, the same games. See your city with different eyes like you never lived there. The house after vacation is one of my favorites. Quiet, dark, drapes all shut, big mail heap under the slot in the dining room, newspapers. The house rested while we were gone and had no sound but neighbor key and watering plants. It’s glad to have us back.