Lessons From My Father: Good, Cheap Fun, Pt. 2

The first half of Good Cheap Fun appeared on the Gravel Road way back in August. Today, you can finally read the second half of the excerpt from Lessons From My Father. As has been mentioned, this tale of vacation woe is packed with more catastrophe than a person can bear at one sitting. But if you want to risk it, Part 1 can be found here. And now, for the rest of the story…

At daybreak we slowly straggled into the kitchen, weary and welted, serious damage having been inflicted upon us during the night. Dad wheeled himself in. “Mornin’, everybody. Hope you all slept as well as I did. Wuddin’ it great to hear those cows mooin’ in the night?”

Despondent, nearly mutinous faces turned toward him.

Dorothy and Donna handed bowls around and placed boxes of cereal on the table. “What is that smell?” Mom asked, her eyes watering slightly. She sniffed me, then Julie, then Gail. “You all smell funny, like…”

“Like wet, ol’ mattresses full a dried pee,” Julie finished her sentence. “We’re real stinky.”

“Don’t worry,” Jim assured us. “We’ll be outside soon. There’s a real nice breeze. You can take soap and a washcloth into the lake when ya swim and get cleaned up. The good news is that the wind has skedaddled the mosquitoes, at least for now. Donna, where’s the key to the boathouse?” As Donna handed him the key, we slurped down our cereal, eager to witness the opening of the marine treasure trove.

We formed a merry caravan as we skipped our way across the yard. Dad, pushed by Jim, led the way, followed by six cavorting youngsters. The cavorting ended when John discovered the cattle had done more than just moo during the night. We picked our way daintily through their cunningly deposited land mines. Jim wheeled Dad to the shoreline near the boathouse, so he could supervise the water activities. Hastily, Jim braked the wheelchair while Dad pulled out his pipe and filled it. Dad was ready for the first smoke of the day, intent on enjoying the experience, enhanced as it was by the morning air, delicately laced with the aroma of fresh land mines.

Jim headed for the boathouse, key in hand. He inserted the lock and tried to turn it. Nothing happened. “Must be the wrong key,” he assured us. He headed back to the house to confer with Donna, but returned quickly. “It’s the right key. The lock must be a bit rusty. Why don’t you kids find a nice place to wade while I work on this a little?”

We wandered off. I spotted a particularly alluring bit of beach, overhung by leafy trees. The sun was getting hot, and the air was humid. I walked along the beach, heading for the shady spot. The sand turned to mud as I approached the shade. Enjoying the coolness, I waded back and forth, watching my feet stir up little muddy tornadoes under the water.

Eventually, the mosquitoes zeroed in on me, and I headed back up the beach where the others were waiting. I looked down and noticed blobs of mud clinging to my legs. I stepped in the water to wash them off, but they wouldn’t budge. I ran over to the others who were playing in the sand.

“Jill,” I said, “I can’t get this mud off my legs.” She bent down for a closer look.

“That’s not mud,” she informed me. “Those are leeches.” She reached down and took hold of one, pulling it out longer and longer, unable to break the powerful attachment between me and my blood-thirsty friend.

“EVERYBODY OUT’A THE WATER,” I screamed at the top of my lungs. “RUN FOR YOUR LIVES. THIS LAKE IS FULL’A LEECHES! GET OUT, GET OUT!” Then I ran, flailing and screaming, toward the house. “HELP, MOM, HELP! I GOT LEECHES ALL OVER ME! I’M GONNA DIE!” Being a child of slightly dramatic nature, I may have overreacted just a bit.

Mom came to the door with the salt shaker in hand. She had seen African Queen, so she knew what to do. Aunt Donna, looking only slightly less green than I felt, made a beeline down to the lake.

“Everybody, out,” she ordered. “This lake is full of leeches. You won’t be able to swim after all.” Groans and even tears greeted her announcement, but she held firm. “We don’t have enough salt,” she explained. “But,” she tried to comfort everyone, “you can still go out in the boats.”

They ran to the boathouse to check on Jim’s progress. There wasn’t any.

“This lock is rusted solid,” he explained. Everyone bent close to look. “Never seen anything like it. Guess we won’t be going boating.”

A wail of disappointment erupted. The noise made Mom and me look up from my mosquito-welted, leech-infested, salt-encrusted, pee-stinky little body. A movement caught my eye, and I noticed that Dad seemed to be inching toward the water as he savored his pipe. He seemed oblivious of his progress. I thought it was one of his jokes. “Mom, look at Dad,” I giggled.

Mom took one look at Dad, his wheelchair gaining momentum. She dropped the salt shaker along with my leg and shouted with more lung power than I knew she possessed, “Jim, Harlan’s rolling into the lake!”

Jim jumped up, hurdled over the children around him, and sprinted towards the rolling chair. He grabbed hold of the wheelchair just as the top of Dad’s boots were swallowed by the lake, and his knees stared the same wet demise right in the eye. Jim yanked him back to safety. Dad’s pipe, jerked from his hand by the force of backward motion, formed a perfect arc as it sailed out of his hand, and splashed into the lake.

“Dorothy,” he said, his humor seeping away as the specter of nicotine withdrawal approached, “I didn’t bring another pipe. Whaddya say we give it up’n go home?” Water dripped from his pant legs and boots.

I kept my hand on the salt shaker, my eyes alert for any sign of leeches beneath his socks.

“Yeah, let’s go home,” Jill chimed in. “We can’t get to the boats, and cuz of Jolene, we can’t go swimmin’.”

“Look at the sky, Jim,” Donna pointed out. “It looks like it could storm.” Sure enough, clouds were building up in the southwest sky. “We don’t even have a radio to check the weather, and this cabin doesn’t have a basement.”

Danelle, John’s age-mate and usually the heartiest and most countrified of our young crew, trudged towards us from the outhouse and solemnly announced, “I used up the last black and white page. The rest of you are gonna hafta to use color.”
We started packing.

As we lurched our way down the rutted lane, the wind rose and the clouds grew darker, forcing us to close the car windows. The humidity increased inside, enhancing the pungent odor emanating from our unwashed bodies. Jill actually enjoyed her little trysts with the cattle gates, as each encounter allowed her to breath untainted air. When we reached the gravel road, the adults stopped the cars and emerged gasping for fresh air. After a quick pow wow, they decided that rather than head all the way to Le Mars, they would drive to Pipestone, where we could be hosed down before spending the night with Grandma and Grandpa Hess. Taking a few last, deep breaths, they entered into the vehicles and drove at a rate I am guessing was more than a little above the speed limit.

We got to Pipestone in record time. Grandma was surprised to see us and after one whiff sent the children off in sets of three to the bathtub. “Use lots of soap and wash your hair,” she advised. She didn’t need to remind us to wipe with toilet paper and flush the stool when we were done. The pleasure was all ours. While we gloried in modern plumbing, the adults hung the sleeping bags on the line to air.

We emerged from the bathtub, clean and shining, wet-haired, and clothed in pajamas from Grandma’s famous pajama drawer, our own sleepwear enjoying a quick spin in the washing machine. After a blessedly mosquito-free supper, we discovered we were exhausted, with lack of sleep and disappointment bearing down upon our eyelids. Grandma made up beds for us on the furniture and on the floor and in the basement. We children hit the hay immediately, listening to the talk and the laughter drifting in from the breezeway as the adults recounted the events of the day.

Just as sleep claimed me, the phone rang. Hands shook me awake and urgent voices ordered me to hurry to the basement. “Tornado,” I heard someone say. I grabbed my pillow and blanket and headed for the basement, following the rest of the children. The adults came behind us, Jim and Mom bringing up the rear, as they took what seemed like an eternity to maneuver Dad and his wheelchair down the narrow stairs. Grandpa switched on the radio, and we listened to its nearly unintelligible crackle as we sat on the basement floor.

Dad surveyed the room, his eyes bright and his grin wide, if a bit forced, due to lack of nicotine. “Boy, I’m sure glad this vacation was free,” he said. “I’d hate to pay good money for a weekend like this.”

“Now, Harlan,” Mom begged, her eyes wet. “Don’t start.”

“Don’t start…what?” he demanded. Mom jerked a slight nod in the direction of Aunt Donna, who was blinking back tears.

“This weekend was supposed to be so fun,” Donna’s voice quavered. “Instead, it was a disaster.”

“At least we got out of the cabin before the tornado,” Jim comforted her. “We’re all safe and sound. And Harlan’s right, at least it was free.”

Dad cleared his throat and spoke again. “Well, not quite. Somebody owes me a pipe.”

We all began to laugh.

To this day, the Hoeys and the Strattons love to get together whenever we can, though we’ve learned to pay as we go. We’ve endured many adventures, but no other trip was as disaster-laden as our free weekend. That trip has become the measuring stick, the lodestone, the gauge to which all other disasters are compared. The truth of the matter is, while no other trip has been nearly so bad, no other trip ever provided as much laughter either. Dad did lose his pipe, but he gained a story that could make him laugh till he cried each time he told it.

“I sure hope,” he would end the story, “I sure hope there’s some dumb fish in that lake enjoyin’ a real good smoke.”