Each spring when we arrived at Luna Pier to open the house for the season, we encountered a chilly, chartreuse green yard, damp with moss from recent rain.
Inside the house were traces of last summer: an old can of baby powder that said Macy's on the label, newspapers left near the pot bellied stove with a date of September sixth, dead flies and spiders in the windowsills, a faded bathing suit in a dresser drawer, and a few coins in the ashtray in my parents bedroom. In the kitchen there would be nothing except salt and pepper shakers, a lone packet of kool-aid and a canister of hardened sugar. It was as if the whole place had gone asleep, just about to wake up, waiting to pick up where it left off.
The enormous American flag was carefully folded and stowed in the shed, the croquet set with a missing red ball and the aluminum lawn chairs also had been put away for winter.
One wood canoe, two wooden row boats, a wood speed boat and the aforementioned wood sail boat, it's mast and boom stored over the rafters on the second floor of the house, were all turtled on sawhorses on the lawn.
These five boats were our entertainment for many, many hours on Lake Erie and we loved them and knew every creak and leak they had.
I think the canoe might have been the oldest of these crafts. It sat in the side yard along our split rail fence. It was painted white with a wide red stripe along the gunnel and the two seats were made of cane. I remember that it constantly leaked no matter how much caulking we stuffed into the holes. We didn't mind. Occasionally we'd carry it to the lake, deftly turn it upside down, gently put it on the water over our heads, and talk and yell to one another until we used up all the good air. What fun we had! I have a wonderful old photo of my parents with the canoe. Mother is sitting inside and Dad is standing in the water with one arm on the canoe and one around Mom. They look so vivid and happy, suspended in time and youth. Mom is in her bathing suit, wearing glamorous looking sunglasses, and holding the paddle. Under the photograph the year 1954 is written in Mother's script.
The two row boats were very old. I don't know their origin. Both were very heavy and painted gray and white. They also leaked, they had old oars and outboard engines. One was a Johnson five horse power and the second and older of the two, carried a two horse power motor.
We used them for fishing and put-putting around the lagoons and small inlets looking for turtles, snakes and minnows.
Sometime in the late fifties, Dad sprung for a "speed boat". This was big time for us, and we were thrilled because the sleek, new boat sported a fifteen horse power out board engine. Wow wee! Now we could pull water skis and zoom all over the lake as fast as lightening. This boat was always referred to as the Anderson-the name of the manufacturer.
Oddly, none of these boats were christened with a name. It was always just the canoe, the row boat or the five horse or the Anderson.
Which brings me to the sail boat, which did have a name. As I wrote in a previous post, my three oldest brothers, Dave, Fritz and Joe bought it with money they had saved from various jobs like paper routes or bagging groceries at Krogers. (In my earlier post I said that it was bought by two older brothers, but Joe informed me that he also had been in on the deal.) Dad was never much of a sailor, but the boys wanted to get into it. The Nipper was twelve feet long and resembles a cat boat with the mast far to the bow. It was painted bright, bumble bee yellow with black trim.
My brothers were teenagers and Dad would get on their cases about chores or their attitudes as all parents of that age group have to do. I was too young to remember much of this, but the story of naming the Nipper goes like this: the summer that the sail boat was new to our fleet, my brothers constantly responded to Dad's nagging by saying "No Sweat". Finally, in exasperation, dad went to the lake with a set of stencils and painted the words "No Sweat" on the stern of their boat.
We loved all these small but worthy water vessels for they provided us with innocent, harmless days on the lake, and I can imagine, provided our Mother with some relished free time away from us for a few cherished hours a day. I felt like I knew each boat like one knows a car or a bicycle or how you know a favorite old sweater. Mornings in June, Dad would leave instructions for what tasks we kids were to have finished by the time he got home that evening. When we came downstairs for breakfast, Mom would tell us that Dad wanted to have this or that boat painted with the first coat of paint. So paint we did. We would take the radio outside, put on our favorite station and get busy painting and listening to music. We painted them each spring, inside and out. We sanded and caulked and varnished with care and pride. Then we waited for the weekend when all were ready to be launched which was a big and fun day indeed.
Then there was the raft.
I'm mot sure how it came to be, but it consisted of a wooden platform of about eight feet square
which sat upon four large oil drums. The platform was painted gray and the drums were that same bright yellow and black as the sail boat. Our last name WENZLER was stenciled on the end of each of the drums. We would anchor it out into deep enough water so that we could dive off of it. It was sort of community property, meaning that anyone in the area could enjoy it. We often would swim out to and find other kids jumping off it and sunning themselves. Sometimes we would begin a game of "King of the Raft". You guessed it-the game was simple. Just shove everyone off the raft and the last person standing is "King." That person was always the biggest guy, but his reign lasted only until he lost to the best challenger. We swam under and around it, playing tag, or we would have cannonball contests. Falling and jumping, even being pushed into the cool water felt great and we always returned home happy and hungry. On rare occasions someone would pick up the anchor and move our raft from in front of our house to another location farther down the shore line. That would lead to a rescue. An army of us would jump into one of our boats and buzz out to get it back, telling the shocked poachers that we were the Wenzlers and to please not take our property. This event would end up as dinner conversation, each of us vowing to closely watch the raft so that the perpetrators couldn't get away with taking it again.
This is how it was in those early June days, year after year, at Luna Pier. We filled up our days with chores and goals to get those boats in the water as soon as we could so that we could get out on the lake and have fun.
As a child, spending summers at the Cottage was innocent, peaceful and safe. It was that sameness that made it an unchanging place in a changing world, a sanctuary.
