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My Lakeside IdyllA not-so-idle tale of beavers, boats and bottom feeding
LATE SUMMER'S early-morning light slants through the surface of Lake Cavanaugh at the end of our dock, traveling all the way to the muddy bottom. It's the best time to get a close look at nature. Around the pilings, there's always a huge school of tiny fish, often being herded by a hungry bass. A frog might float out from under the dock, and you might see a crayfish making its way along the bottom. Or you might spot the latest pair of reading glasses I dropped into the drink the night before while trying to get the cover back on the boat. A pager's down there, too, and at least two cell phones that haven't returned calls in years. Not to mention screwdrivers, pliers and one of my favorite ratchet sets, all sacrificed to the lake gods through the gyrations performed in that unique worship known as Powerboat Mechanics. It was while sitting on the dock peering through 15 feet of water and planning a screwdriver rescue dive that I realized one of the saddest days of my childhood was probably one of the happiest days of my Uncle Leil's life: the day he sold his lake cottage. I have great memories of that cottage: Bobbing away afternoons on an inner tube, boat rides, bamboo fishing poles, walking to the store for penny candy and ice cream, going to sleep to the sound of rain on the cottage roof while adults laughed over a pinochle game downstairs. Those memories of that Michigan cottage are what made me talk my family into going partners in a cabin at Lake Cavanaugh here in Washington. But during my recent dock reverie I realized that when Uncle Leil walks into one of those 1950s memories, he is always working: driving the boat; getting kids into those old orange, spongy life vests that took all winter to dry; putting the boat away; fixing the boat; grilling burgers; untangling fishing lines and baiting hooks for any delicate soul with an aversion to worm slime, and on and on. Then came the revelation that I had become a modern-day version of my Uncle Leil. That epiphany flashed through my brain while trying to find a leak in the water line that supplies our cabin. It came just after I had grabbed hold of a stalk of devil's club (such an appropriate name) to keep from falling down a stream bank and right before I landed on my back in the middle of the stream. But the vole's-eye view I was getting of the forest as I crawled out was a good thing: Right there where the water line went under a moss-encased fallen log was the leak, squirting water right into my eyes. I wondered if Uncle Leil's water lines ever got chewed on by raccoons. Or it could have been a porcupine that gnawed this particular set of holes in the black plastic. After all, an extremely reliable hiking buddy once told me these animals had been known to eat entire sets of tires off cars parked at trail heads, leaving tired hikers no choice but to keep on walking.
I couldn't remember any animal life at Uncle Leil's cabin except for the worms and an occasional fish flopping in the bottom of his beautiful wood-finish boat. But the Pacific Northwest version of the cabin is always tuned to the Animal Planet. Beavers have built lodges by hollowing out the Styrofoam floats holding up the dock (Have our schools failed to adequately teach young beavers tree felling?). Geese poop on top of the dock. And you should see the commotion a fruit bat can make by flying into a room full of people. Our mice are upwardly mobile. The guy who replaced one of the cabin's foundation walls (don't even ask) informed us that the mice had destroyed most of the insulation under the flooring. Then they moved upstairs into what we delusionally regarded as human living space. Weapons of mice destruction were brought out. Traps, poison and finally an electronic device that sits there quietly, performing some indiscernible function that keeps the mice away and makes me think cautious thoughts about sterility. The flora can be as challenging in these parts as the fauna. Weed whacking and wood chopping are forever. Decks rot off cabins before the wood stain and sealer dry. Docks are weather dependent: They sink in wet years or fly away in windy ones. In wet, windy years like this past winter, they all leave their nests and migrate to the center of the lake for an annual dock exchange held around Memorial Day. My neighbor spent seven straight days without power this winter and couldn't leave because the fallen trees were lined up across the roads like railroad ties. When a man came with heavy equipment to clear snow out of the driveway, he got stuck in it. My neighbor suggested a new name for the lake community: High Maintenance. My Uncle Leil was of that generation of men who knew the correct intonation for "Judas Priest." And I'm sure he'd use that emphatic expression when viewing what lies ahead in getting the cabin opened up this year for another summer of bobbing away afternoons on an inner tube, boat rides, fishing, going to sleep to the sound of rain on the roof and laughing over games of dominoes. That's another thing I remember about my Uncle Leil at his cottage: He was always smiling or laughing; he was always happy making others happy. Now that's the kind of uncle I'd like to be. John B. Saul, a retired Seattle Times editor, is a freelance writer and editor.
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