and lake water in our hair
Summers were slow back when we swam in that lake. Deep green and inky to the bottom. You could barely see your own hand stretched out in front of you, forget about your toes and whatever lay in the cold dark space beneath them.
An ivy-hued sea in the shadow of a towering landfill. As kids, we imagined it was a picturesque mountain, though the slow moving breeze of a June afternoon always gave the illusion away. Looking back, I never did find out if the jokes about not eating the fish were in earnest.
We got there by way of caravan, modern in its makeup. Used minivans ’05 pickup trucks and cars bought from friends of friends trailing down the four-lane highway. Kids packed in backseats, 30 packs on the floor. Past the Taco Bell and hang a left. Over the bridge and down the long road, the one with no speed limit posted. Drive until the pavement turns to gravel and you’re there.
This is how we spent summer days in my youth. Arriving in the early morning and staying well past dark. The one time and place we were truly let loose. Unsupervised.
The lake club has been around since the 1930s. First a hunting and fishing center, it evolved some time after that into primarily a recreational club and campground. Like some kind of lower-middle-class country club, my family has held memberships here since the 1970s. To hear my father tell it, that was the peak decade. Prime years for his childhood and early teenagehood. Back when jet skis hadn’t yet been banned. Before the waste management corporation bought it out. When everyone knew everyone and the 3-mile drive felt like some kind of getaway.
Our fathers and mothers, our aunts and uncles, I think they were trying to catch that feeling and pass it down to us. Give us some of the childhood magic that painted their memories in sepia tone and Kodak Gold.
If it was lightning in a bottle they were after, we settled for lightning bugs in jars.
The water was our God. All activity centered around it. Morning, afternoon, and evening swims. Wading in the pebble bottomed shallows until the evening chilled our skin. Skipping rocks as far as our arms could manage. Paddling the two person boat out way past the lily pads, where we knew we weren’t allowed to go. Trapping minnows in a barrel and using a thick old tactical flashlight to hunt for eels. But when the sun was out, fishing was choice.
The rule for us was catch and release only, and we were happy to oblige. Bare footed we tiptoed across the metal dock. Cousins and siblings damp and shivering from a late-afternoon dip. Pale skinned and skinny limbed and mostly unscarred by the lives we had lived so far.
Tiny fingers made less-perfect versions of the knots our fathers showed us. The bravest of hands scrounged for nightcrawlers in a jar of moist, black soil. We’d fish for an hour or four, debating the merits of Wonder Bread, worms, and hot dogs as bait.
I was never patient enough for this. I’d cast the line out fast and hard to the center of the lake and reel it back in so fast my hook would sometimes come up empty. That tiny sliver of steel dripping water, evidence of my eagerness.
Once or twice, sheer luck saw me bring a fish up on the other end of the line. A sunfish, limp and wriggling and gasping for breath. I’d wrap my thin fingers around his body, green and yellow iridescent scales coming loose, and wrestle with the hook. It was always at this moment, that I would begin to feel terrible. Sorry that it had been my inexperienced hands at the other end of the line he found himself on. After the hook routed itself back out of his soft flesh, I would place his small body back in the water carefully, and whisper an apology in my mind.
On afternoons when we were lucky, Bubba would swing the boat into the cove. We would hear him coming before we saw him. The hum of a wave runner, the engine working overtime, carrying across the water. The wake would crash against the shore, the dock percussively rocking with it, as we scavenged for our life vests.
8 or 10 or however many of us would pile in. Some of us in life jackets that fit a little better than others. We sat on laps or on the floor or on the worn leather seat, hot from the sun and sticking to our bare legs. The scratchy, turf lined floor was littered with discarded hooks and old lures. Gummy, sun-heated faux fish in unnatural hues of pink, teal, neon green, and purple.
We’d coast under the bridge into the no-wake zone and the sun would catch the near-still water. Rays that disappeared into the cloudy, green and splintered off into diagonals. Then we sped off out the other side.
Water would catch our eyes and open mouths as we jumped the waves. It tasted slightly sweet. We’d feel ten degrees cooler by this point. Goosebumps running up and down our bare arms.
If he was in a particularly good mood he’d let the older kids drive. We felt like Kings behind that wheel.
I’ve been back in recent years. On an expired membership card I’d drive the backlot trails at night. Windows down, letting out the AC, and letting in the sound of screaming frogs and crickets.
The landfill is now twice the size it once was, and expanding longer on the horizon. I don’t know when they stock the fish, or when overnight camping starts for the season. My cousins and I grew apart. I wouldn’t know where to find those skinny, wild kids even if I tried.
But I’ll always remember the taste of potatoes cooked over the fire in hot tin foil. The smell of sweet and tangy orange cakes simmering on the coals. The sound of laughter carrying over the water in whoops and trills.
There was a Walmart supercenter less than 5 miles away but man did it feel wild. Skinned knees and bitten ankles and dirt beneath our fingernails. And lake water in our hair.
