had eaten something he shouldn’t have. Perhaps it was just his time. The old-timers on the lake gave their theories — poison toads, tainted mushrooms, reaction to a bee sting. What was indisputable was that he had lived well, a long and full life.
Though he may have managed to live slightly longer if we were home and closer to help, in the end death had joined Macky to the place he loved. We can all wish for a similar end.
First Ski
Learning to water-ski is a little bit like learning to ride a bicycle. Okay, so one of them is on dry land and one is in the water, one of them is on two wheels and the other is on two boards. Still, it is balance and trying, and falling and trying again, and skinning your knee or swallowing lake water, and then trying one more time.
With training wheels off, you hold the seat of your kid’s bike and run along behind. You let go for a second and the bike starts to wobble, so you lunge forward, grab on, and run some more. You might just be getting into the best shape of your life. Finally, on the umpteenth try, you let go and the child just pedals away. You jog a bit further, but you know the time has come. You stop and try to cheer, but you are wheezing, hunched over, and gasping for breath. So you delicately give a thumbs-up.
My nine-year-old son got up on water skis this week. He has been working hard at it this summer, trying to keep up with his older sisters. We do not have the fancy training bars on the boat, or any particular model of learning skis. When the children’s feet fit into the smallest pair of water skis we own, they are welcome to give it a try.
They get into the water, hold the rope, yell “Hit it,” and then we see where it takes us. We get into the water with them, hold them steady, bombard them with little tidbits of useless advice, and then watch helplessly as they are jerked quickly to the surface of the water. Just as quickly, they get tossed back into the lake with a violent splash and a clatter of skis. Their legs go in different directions, so you are sure their limber bodies will be torn in two.
We swim up to them and tell them that they were almost up. We urge them to give it another try. “Don’t let go so quickly,” we tell them. They trust us and try again — this time hanging on to the tow bar far too long after they have fallen, dragging themselves through the water like a torpedo, swallowing half of the lake. “Just about,” we yell when they finally surface.
I do not think any of us really know what the secret to getting up on the skis is — at least I know I don’t. We give advice culled from our years of skiing, but until everything comes together for them, in their own brains, they are going nowhere.
Then the time comes. He is up — unsteady, yes, but up and skiing. His skis drift apart, and with body language you try to will him out of the splits. He bends too far forward and bobs over some rough water, but refuses to go down. The wide smile on his face is reward enough for all the patience and repetition. You try to cheer, but instead take in a mouthful of lake water and only sputter and cough and stick a thumbs-up. You realize you are freezing to death. You realize that the boat is coming back around and you’re bobbing in the middle of the bay. You swim frantically for shore and realize that you were in better shape way back when you were teaching him to ride his bicycle.
It’s all worth it, because he is skiing, and he is feeling good about himself. You know that now that he has gotten up, he will always get up, always be able to ski. Like learning to ride a bike, when you put it all together and rise out of the water … there is no going back. You never seem to forget the secret, the secret that can be learned but never shared.
Like learning to ride a bike — when they put it all together and rise from the water, there is no going back.
He will open his eyes in the morning — the late morning — and look out at a lake as calm as glass, the perfect, still water for skiing. He will say, “Dad, can I go skiing?” You will put down your book and your coffee, drop whatever it is you are doing, and drag him around the lake. Sometimes you will ask yourself, Why did I ever teach him to do this? Mostly, you are just happy that you don’t have to swim around for hours in the cool lake water anymore, helping him out. Well, until it comes time for your next one, the six-year-old, the youngest, to give it a go.
Life Is a Game
I am feeling very dejected this evening. I’m sitting at the kitchen table with my head in my hands, looking down at a mess of cards and a cribbage board, while my seven-year-old card shark of a daughter dances around the cottage chanting, “I skunked daddy!” It doesn’t seem very long ago that we were teaching her the game and taking it easy on her while she learned. Now, I try my hardest, but … “I smell something skunky,” she sings. “Is there a smell in the room?”
“It’s a good game for learning her numbers, isn’t it?” I grumble to my wife.
I don’t know about you, but we play a lot of games with the whole family when we are at the cottage. Most evenings, after the supper dishes have been cleaned up, we will sit around the big kitchen table and pull out a game. Sometimes, when the rain clouds have closed in and it’s wet and grey outside, we might spend an afternoon rolling dice and moving little men around a board. There is something about the cottage and the tradition of games.
Perhaps it is because we have no electricity at our island cabin, and therefore no television, video games, or any such diversions. I believe it is more than that, though. A trip to the cottage is a step back to simpler times, and those simpler times are more conducive to quality family time.
We have a storage bench where all the games are kept. Some have been there for thirty-some years, since I was a kid. Some are more modern. A couple are missing a piece or two, replaced by makeshift cards or odd trinkets. Some of the boxes have been taped up, while others are in mint condition.
We have original editions of Clue and Monopoly, two perennial favourites. There are Risk, Full House, Masterpiece, and Life. There are checkers and Chinese checkers, chess, backgammon, and Mastermind. We have an old Rummoli game where we can teach the children how to gamble, in the same manner and on the same board where I learned how to play poker with my parents when I was young. In my dad’s handwriting on one corner of the board, now slightly faded and barely legible, is the order of what beats what, from royal flush down to ace high.
Of course, there are several decks of cards, most of them complete. We love a good round of euchre or hearts. There are modern games like The Settlers of Catan and Cranium. When bigger groups gather, we can make fools of ourselves playing Pictionary, Balderdash, Trivial Pursuit, or charades. My wife and I will sit on the dock on a quiet afternoon and play a game of Scrabble.
I remember my siblings and me cleaning up after supper while my parents went for an evening paddle. Then we would get a game set up and eagerly await their return. Playing a game with the parents was always something we looked forward to — it was a memorable part of cottage life.
Another memory is of my parents going to a friend’s for dinner. They returned talking about all that happened in the evening, and I could hear them from my bed. I caught snippets of their conversation: some murdered body, hit over the head with a candlestick, in a ballroom. From what I could understand, there were secret passages between rooms — how cool is that in the imaginative mind of a five-year-old? My mother had been hanging out with some professor in a billiard room, but my dad didn’t seem to mind, even when the academic turned out to be a killer. My dad seemed to have followed some sexpot named Scarlet around, and this did seem to annoy my mother. I thought, boy adults have fun: people murdered, and what a mansion their friends must have! A game called Clue had just been introduced to North America.
Now,
