Wednesday, July 24, 2019

Chocolaty, sticky, nostalgic

Mark and Karen's long-time project in the woods.
“Put the marshmallows back, sweetie,” I said to my wistful, 13-year-old granddaughter, Emily. We were at Cub Foods, filling a cooler with road food for our 250-mile adventure to see my classmates, Mark and Karen, in their northern Wisconsin summer home. Instead, we grabbed some yogurt, clementines, apples, and fruit juice, as her mother had instructed . . . and of course the old standby, Cheez It, original flavor.

I didn’t think we’d use the marshmallows. The possibility of smores around a campfire was as likely as hearing a gentle rendition of “Kumba ya, my Lord” from Mark, I thought. But I would be wrong.

Our hosts have developed a gorgeous summer home over the past 30 years, tucked beside a spectacular chain of lakes, south of Lake Superior. It could now serve as year-round housing, but they winter in Stoughton, where they had careers and still have family.

We gabbed relentlessly on the front deck beneath their towering pines, in the silence of the perfect Wisconsin summer day. Earlier, a curious deer, ears erect, had stopped by to see what was going on. Sophie, the aging Bird dog, put a swift end to that incursion, once she belatedly spotted the interloper. Like many of us, however, she has hearing loss and was oblivious to the shouted commands by her master, as she merrily chased the deer way back into the woods, leaving Mark to patiently retrieve his faithful retriever.

Emily joined us on the big deck for a while, and was tasked with finding the classmates in the junior high yearbook. She did, thankfully, but was stunned to learn that grandpa was not bald in seventh grade. We laughed at past stories, enjoyed the present, and spoke of the future. We lost track of the day, and soon it was time to board for a pontoon ride to a 30’s restaurant -- made famous again by Johnny Depp in “Public Enemy”, -- which was the site of a Dillinger shootout just two lakes away. We looked for bullet holes as we waited for dinner.

Taken at nightfall from the boat house on the shore line
Emily piloted the big pontoon, grinning from ear to ear, giving wide berth to the loons so as not to disturb. Home at twilight, we started a lakeside campfire, and what do you know, Karen brought out the graham crackers, chocolates, and marshmallows. Emily made smores for each of us. Chocolaty, sticky, nostalgic.

As night fell beside the still water, we named the stars, the close of a perfect evening with old friends, an unbroken bond, more than half a century old.

Mark may have been inspired, but he did not sing.