Memoir & Mystery: Colored Waters
(featuring the paintings of Winslow Homer, American artist, 1836-1910)
(featuring the paintings of Winslow Homer, American artist, 1836-1910)
When I was a kid, we lived in a house on a hill overlooking the lake. The town had a lumbermill, and the house was built by local lumbermen. Honey oak floors bordered by high base boards rolled out like a welcome mat. Heavy oak doors decked out with decorative casing led eyes to ceilings framed with fancy crown moulding. The focal point of the main floor was the oversized fireplace and its mantle of dark polished walnut. Mom decorated it with empty booze decanters that she salvaged from the village dump, especially going for the crystal clear ones with one-of-a-kind stoppers. She mixed water with food coloring and ended up with a rainbow display of this curated collection. A Dutch-like artist, aesthetically inclined and practical, she arranged them with precision, inviting light to play on the colored waters. She was happy there.
At the seven o’clocks, the factory whistle bellowed as my wake-up alarm and bedtime toll. I remember once coming home from school so tired that I went right to bed. I popped up at the whistle, got dressed, and came down for breakfast. My brother looked at me sideways. “Where ya’ goin’?” he asked. “School,” I said. He smirked, “It’s seven at night, not morning!” Back to bed I went.
The winter lakeview was gray and cold and awful. The north wind ripped across the frozen crust creating icy snowscapes. From the hill I could hear the crack and moan as it moved with the water below. Near the shoreline, kids shoveled off snow for a place to skate. Ice shacks sprouted at random, and after the lake got sturdy enough to hold more weight, the townsfolk would tow an old truck to the middle of it. The men at the mill would bet on the day the ice would give way, sucking the truck to the mucky bottom below. Everybody watched and waited, seeming to live for spring at the lake. With fishing season, boats dotted the white-capped water and families filled the piers.
The village workers kicked off the official start of summer as they anchored buoys as boundaries for swimmers. The pontoon raft, set nearest its farthest edge, was a good distance from the dock so only the good swimmers could make it. They’d swim out racing, play king of the hill and throw each other overboard, then climb back on and dry off in the sun, only to dive in and get soaked again. My brother told me of how he was on the raft and saw a head popping out of the water. “She had a baby face,” he said, “I thought she was a small child but when I got to her she put her arms around my neck. We went straight to the bottom. I yanked her off and pulled her to safety. What a shock to see she was bigger than me! And, I got a certificate from the governor for saving her life.”
For Independence Day, the little town paraded with marching bands, and picnicked at the pavilion. The music rose to our house on the hill. Mom, as quick as she could, cleaned up our holiday barbeque for in the twilight, the townspeople would creep up the hill with chairs and blankets and claim their spot for full view of fireworks blasting over the lake. Our place, at least on that special day, belonged to everyone and it was nice.
We spent most of our summer on the beach, just down the hill and across the road. Me and my brothers scavenged for pails and mounded up piles of sand for castles. Daring and brave, we captured crayfish. The biggest crayfish was, of course, King. He was mean. You had to grab him just right or he’d snap. We kept a close eye on him lest he escape and ruin our fun. The middle sizers became queens or servants. They were easy to keep in a trench while we put the last spit and polish on our castle. We’d filled the castle with them. The queen and her court spent time in the turrets. The feisty mid-sized guarded the castle like soldiers on the parapet. The little ones roamed cobblestone streets. We never made a dungeon, even for King.
The castle had a moat and we kept it flowing with water. When Mom called us for lunch, we ran back up the hill, leaving our kingly crayfish family to leave us for the lake.
