Category Archives: summer

The Cottage

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10 year old me, huge pink glasses and all, hanging out with Dad on the front porch of the “old” Buttrick cottage on Sage Lake. 1990

Lately, the cottage has been on my mind.  In Michigan, many families have a “cottage” or “cabin” Up North, however you define it.  Minnesota may be the land of 10,000 lakes, but Michigan actually has more, only outnumbered by Alaska.  As a true Michigander, I am drawn to water in all of its forms.  The cottage in my mom’s family, going back at least five generations, still plays an important role in our family.

Actually, there are two.  The “old cottage,” which belonged to my great grandmother, Leona Clara Forward Buttrick, otherwise known to her great grandchildren as Great (I wrote about her life in Family History), had character to spare.  Dating back to the 1930s or 1940s, the “old cottage” looms large in my childhood memories.  It was the site of numerous weekend get-togethers with extended family, particularly my Buttrick grandparents, cousins, and aunts (and their husbands).  Great spent most of her summers at the “old” cottage on Sage Lake, which made these early memories extra special.

Once Great passed away in 1993, it was decided that we needed a cottage closer to the lake, a new place to make new memories.  Thankfully, this cottage is still in constant use during the summer and still the site of countless family summer gatherings.  Still, there is something special about the “old” cottage, warts and all.  It is still there, largely unchanged, to be enjoyed by a new family.

If anything, I would have to say it was Great herself that made the cottage special.  She was always there, smiling and laughing.  She seemed to just take it all in, surrounded by her granddaughters, great granddaughters, son, and daughter-in-law, among others.  She always had a tin filled with Hydrox cookies for her great grandchildren and would look the other way while we snuck them.

It was a treat to spend the night at the cottage with Great.  I believe that my mom, sister, and I stayed overnight with Great at the cottage a handful of times.  I loved waking up near the lake, having toast with real honey from the comb and an individual box of cereal for breakfast.  The “old” cottage may have been located on a large bluff overlooking Sage Lake, making swimming and boating a workout, but the view was second to none.

As Great’s birthday was in late August, I vividly remember driving up to the cottage to take Great out to dinner.  Mom, Erica, and I pilled in Great’s huge seafoam green Caddy to take her out for frog legs, her favorite.  We all adored Great, but the relationship that my mom had with her grandmother was truly special.  It must have been for my mom to pack up her two little girls and drive over half an hour each way to take her grandmother out to dinner for her birthday.  I am so grateful for all the time I got to spend with Great. As I was 13 when she passed away, I knew her well  Not everyone gets the opportunity to know a great grandparent in such a wonderful, detailed way.

The thing about going to the cottage during my childhood was that it was a process.  Yes, there may have been times when I actually traveled to the cottage with my parents, but that is not what I remember as well.  What I will remember most is all the fun I had piling into my grandparents’ huge 1980s station wagon with my older cousins.  At one point, Grandpa B. owned one of those coveted wood paneled station wagons that had a rear facing seat.  Of course, as kids, we all piled in the “way” back.  My sister Erica, our cousin Abby, and I spent the entire 20 minute trip making up songs, playing silly finger-snap games, and hoping that we would be the “first one to see the lake.” Getting there was half the fun.

Actually, in those days, my parents presence at the cottage didn’t register much.  No.  The cottage was all about playing with cousins.  We would climb the tree in the front yard, create dance routines on the parking pylons and the torpedo towable, and swim.  There were trips to the pop shop and pontoon boat rides too.  Grandpa could never understand why I would always pick out baseball cards (normally Topps ‘87s) instead of candy at the pop shop.  I think it amused him.

Swimming and boating at the “old” cottage required a little planning.  The obstacle to lake access was a large, steep set of stairs.  If you were going down to the lake, you stayed there for a while.  If anyone was heading up to the cottage and planned to return to the lake, she automatically played waitress.  It wasn’t kind to head up without asking if anyone needed anything.  It is the one thing that I do not miss about the “old” cottage. If we weren’t down at the lake, we were hanging out on the large covered porch in the front yard, facing Second Ave., the lake behind.  This was the site of all of our games.

Of course, no description of cottage life would be complete without a description of the food.  For dinner, there was chicken, burgers, and hotdogs on the grill with plenty of sides and salads, you name it.  What really stands out, though, is so simple:  Grandma B.’s fruit platters.  Even us kids devoured mounds of fresh watermelon, cantaloupe, bananas, and blue berries.  As soon Grandma brought out the fruit tray, it was time to take a break from all the fun.

Then there was the cottage itself.  It was small and pine paneled with lots of windows overlooking the deck with the lake below, decorated in a mix of mid century cottage style.  Even though there were only two bedrooms, it never felt cramped to me as a child.  It largely smelled of fresh air and the lake, with Great’s Airspun powder lingering in the bathroom.  Overall, it is a place where I made countless memories that I will always carry with me.

I am grateful that my brother Garrett takes his kids to the cottage often.  For him, it is all about catching air on Sage on a wakeboard.  Both of his kids, both under 10, adore wakeboarding and tubing behind the speedboat.  Yet, I feel for Garrett.  He has little to no memory of the cottage atmosphere I just described – the one seared in my memory, the one that started it all.  While he definitely knew Great, she passed away when he was only two years old.  It saddens me because the image of how fiercely my toddler brother adored our great grandmother is among one of sweetest things I have ever witnessed in my life.  I’m just glad the cottage still lives on.  The cottage is still a place where cousins make memories.

Summer’s End

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As I have said before, I have a love/hate relationship with Labor Day.  I am always happy to put the canoe livery to rest until next year, and yet, summer always seems to go by way too quickly.   I only made it out on the river once this summer (our annual company trip) … so far.  While there is a part of me that wishes we always had summer weather here in Michigan, I know better.  As a lifelong Michigander, I definitely need the change of seasons.  Both times I lived in Texas, I missed it.  In my soul.  It never felt natural to hang out on patios in December, needing only light jackets.  Where was the crisp fall weather, the smell of burning leaves, visits to apply orchards?  It just didn’t seem right.

I came home today to see all of the canoe livery buses and mini buses parked in my backyard, safe from any flooding.  The store is condensed and ready for us to close in a month or so.  All of the picnic tables are stacked, put away until spring arrives yet again.  Just a few weeks ago, we were packed at both locations and had several hundred people go down the river on Saturday morning.  Now, we have the place all to ourselves once again.  It always catches me by surprise how quickly we go from beyond busy to ready to close up for the year.

I can’t imagine the canoe livery not being a part of my life.  I thought about it earlier this summer, and I realized that it truly was my first home.  Until I was three years old, my parents, my sister Erica, and I lived in a mobile home at our main location in Omer.  It was located where our large pole barn is now.  I’ve literally watched my parents build their business my entire life.  My brother and sister saw much of it as well; however, I am just enough older to have witnessed a bit more than either one of them. It is interesting, and frankly, I’m not sure it could have been done today – at least not in the same way.  I remember my dad making annual spring trips to Minnesota to purchase more canoes, the original three buses purchased after my parents married in 1977 (they made the best forts when not in use!), and the tiny walkup store we had prior to our current store in Omer.

So many of my childhood memories are tied up with the canoe livery.  One of my first memories is of playing the card game war with Grandma Reid in the old store.  Another early memory is of Grandma and Mom playing two-handed Euchre, snacking on MadeRite cheese popcorn, waiting for people to come off the river.  I would spend hours playing in the river and by the dock, not getting out of the water until I was completely waterlogged, trying to ignore my goosebumps.  I distinctly remember being excited when the calendar changed to March and April – and yet being SO disappointed that it wasn’t nearly warm enough to go swimming in the river.  I can’t think of a better way to grow up.

I love the fact my niece and nephew are growing up right near the canoe livery.  They visit me at the store several times a week.  I can’t begin to describe the nostalgia I feel watching them play.  They are fish, and there are many times I have had to warm them up after they have spent a little too much time in the river.  I have to remind them to put on shoes in the store constantly – reliving the time I found a bee with my bare foot at age 6.  One day this past summer, my niece decided that she wanted to take a shower in the showerhouse at the campground, nevermind that she could take a shower in her home (a two minute walk at most).  What cracked me up most is the fact that I remember doing the exact same thing at her age.  It was a production.  The forts, the pooling of money to purchase items in the store, leaving bikes in all the wrong places – sigh.  So fun.  I’m glad I’m in a position to spoil them a little bit.  I hope that they enjoy every minute.

Until next year!

A Fresh Start … Part 2

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Read A Fresh Start … Part 1

By mid-June, things were starting to come together at the canoe livery …  but would our customers return?  Boy, did they!  We had a wedding at our main location in Omer towards the end of June.  After the wedding, with one more weekend in June left, we became increasingly busy, experiencing volume rivaling what we normally experience mid-to-late July or even early August.  True to form, we remained busy right up until the mid-August.

Normally, this would be welcomed and wouldn’t have been an issue.  However, this year, thanks to COVID, we didn’t have adequate time to properly prepare.  During a “normal” year, we have much of June to prepare for the crowds.  Things ramp up during June until it becomes crazy from the 4th of July until mid-August.  Well, we lost that time to hire and train.  We had a week, maybe two, before we started to become that busy.  Add in the pressure of new safety precautions, difficulty in getting merchandise, and rebuilding from the flood, and one gets a sense of why it became so stressful.  I feel as though I have been running a marathon since May.

Please don’t get me wrong.  I am eternally grateful that our business not only survived but grew during COVID.  I refrain from saving thrive because it would not be sustainable long-term.  Simply too many hours and too much work in such a short period of time.  Still, it haunts me that so many small businesses didn’t survive or are in danger of closing permanently.  All I could think of this spring is the decades of work the canoe livery represents – my family history and my personal history.  It would not exist if not for the hard work, dedication, foresight, and planning of my parents, my grandparents, and now my brother and I, along with countless others over the years.  So much in my life simply would not have been possible without the canoe livery.  In it, I see my future.  Whether I like it or not, the canoe livery and the Rifle River is a part of me.  The very idea of it no longer existing is unimaginable.

If nothing else, I do hope that I have turned the corner and truly have a fresh start this fall.  It feels that way.  I could use some routine and consistency in my life – along with a healthy dose of “normal” – whatever that is now.  It is time to figure out exactly what it is that I want.  I know that I have returned to that theme dozens of times here over the years.  Yet, I still don’t know.

Who is to say that I will be content to spend the rest of my life alone?  If I met the right man – and I repeat here, the right man – I can see myself in a relationship again.  Yet, I have a difficult time seeing how I would meet him.  Same goes for children.  I would love to be a mother.  I know I would nail it.  Yet just the mere thought of the foster and/or adoption processes is enough to make me want to break out in hives.  I know what can go wrong all too well.  Maybe it will be time to “jump” sooner rather than later.  I do know that I do not want to regret what I didn’t do in my life.  Until then …

A Fresh Start … Part 1

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My favorite color is October …

I’ve always loved fall, but somehow, this time of year just means more this year.  I’ve been on an emotional rollercoaster (more on that in a minute, and not all entirely COVID related) since mid-March.  I want OFF!  NOW.  I never dreamed that I would help run a business and teach middle school during a pandemic, but here I am.  Something I never wanted to add to my bucket list.

As I am smack-dab in the middle of returning to in-person classes for the first time since mid-March, it is SO nice to have some normalcy, particularly after a summer and spring that was anything but “normal.”  I missed my students deeply, and I enjoy just observing kids being kids.

So, about this spring and summer …  Well, of course, it all started mid-March – that ill-fated Friday the 13th to be exact.  As the shutdown deepened, I began to worry about opening the canoe livery for the season.  Worry about the survivability of the family business #1.  Frankly, it didn’t look good.  Just as we, along with pretty much everyone else on the Rifle River, made the decision to open for self-contained camping only during Memorial Weekend, the other shoe dropped.

May 18th-20th, we received close to 7 inches of rain.  Dams in nearby Gladwin and Midland counties failed.  Fortunately, we did have a little warning thanks to another livery on the river.  My parents, brother, and I were able to save much of our technology and merchandise in our store in Omer.  Good thing we had that warning.  We ended up with 3 feet of water in the store.  That wasn’t even the worst part.

During the shutdown, I made the decision to stay with my mom.  I don’t think either of us wanted to be alone in our own homes for an extended period of time.  My dad was at their cabin in Canada when the shutdown happened, and he didn’t come home immediately.  I was over at my parents’ house when the stay-at-home order dropped.  Then, it just became habit.  What was I supposed to do at home by myself that entire time?  Normally, I am rarely at home.  I am usually at work, running errands – all kinds of things – none of which I could do during the lockdown.

Anyway, my parents and I watched in May as the Rifle River filled our Crystal Creek Campground near my parents’ home.  It nearly reached Pinnacle Bridge, which is amazing in and of itself.  Then it happened.  I read a Facebook post that stated that the Forest Lake Dam broke.  We evacuated my parents’ home.  While the Forest Lake Dam isn’t directly on the Rifle River, it would feed into the nearby river if it did break.  There simply was no way to predict what would happen if the dam broke.  My parents feared losing their home of nearly 40 years, not to mention their business of nearly 45 years.  I can still hear the panic in both of my parents’ voices.  I hope to never experience anything like again it in my life.  Same can be said for most of March through August.

Fortunately, the dam held.  We returned to my parents’ home later that day when we received word that the immediate danger had passed.  While I haven’t made a habit of watching the local news in decades, I did watch that evening as local affiliates reported as the Edenville and Sanford dams collapsed, devastating Gladwin and Midland counties.  I know the area.  I used to manage a convenience store in Sanford.  I traveled M-30 across the Edenville dam many times.  Wixom and Sanford Lakes are no more, and the Tittabawassee River reclaimed its original path.  It so easily could have been my family.  My parents could have easily lost their home – MY childhood home – and their business that day.  So many in Midland and the surrounding area did.

When we were finally able to survey the damage, we were lucky.  The flood mainly damaged our main location in Omer this time.  Keep in mind that we suffered devastating flood/ice damage – along with tornado damage later that summer – at our Crystal Creek Campground in 2018.  In Omer, we lost our propane tank, our ice chest, fencing, and a campsite.  Yes, you read that correctly.  When our campground – a former mill pond – flooded, the water drained in one area, completely eroding one of our campsites.  We had to get excavation work done in order to rebuild.  All of this on top of 3 feet of water in our store, bathrooms, and pole barns.  The cleanup took nearly a month, delaying our opening.  When we were finally able to reopen in mid-June, we didn’t know what to expect.

I will leave off here for now.  There is so much more to the story.  While I will discuss some aspects of what happened after we reopened another day, there is much more that will have to be left unsaid.  So much of what made this summer truly horrendous isn’t even my story to tell.

In my family’s experience with the flood, I watched my parents, my brother, and I come together to make things happen under unprecedented circumstances.  COVID made things much more difficult than they needed to be.  Something as simple as ordering merchandise for the summer became a nightmare.  Yet, it worked.  We somehow made it work.  That is precisely why I wanted to tell this story.

Above all, I hope all of us – every last person affected by COVID, which is the entire planet – finally get some semblance of normal.  We deserve it!

Bookish Blog Hop: How does reading inspire your everyday life?

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This may be my first time participating in a Bookish Blog Hop, but I hope it will not be my last.

Today’s discussion question is:

How does reading inspire your everyday life?

What a great – and in my case, loaded – question!  First, I can’t imagine my life without reading and writing.  They are inseparable in my mind, and I would not be writing – not even here at Ramblings of a Misguided Blonde – if it were not for reading.  As a child, I fell in love with Anne of Green Gables and all the Little House books, and of course, Nancy Drew – along with so many others.  While I did largely stop reading for pleasure during my college years, as I began to explore my love of writing, I found my love of reading again.  It informs my writing to the point where I can’t tell you where one begins and the other ends.  Once I read Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose, there was not looking back.  I still consider it one of the most influential books I have ever read.  Every day reading offers me hope, inspiration, and an education.  It is as simple and as complicated as that.

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Views She Writes https://viewsshewrites.wordpress.com

Reading is the soul of my existence, the breath in my life. Reading inspires me to live, to dream and to observe the surroundings as our surroundings are the greatest story tellers. I started writing because of these teachings from the books that surround me. I hope to read till my last breath of life.

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Leslie Conzatti www.upstreamwriter.blogspot.com

Ha! I recently wrote a whole blog post on how certain books have played a part in my worldview philosophy!

In short, reading has inspired my everyday life because while on the surface the characters face impossible odds and fantastical situations–deep down, all these exaggerations are just hyperboles of real-world choices we all face. Through reading, I can find a character who struggles with a lot of the same things I do, and I can see a new perspective on it, a fresh way to deal with the issue that I hadn’t considered before. The good books connect me closer to my real-world life, instead of dragging me further away. It’s like that quote I shared yesterday, from Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451: “Good writers touch life often.” In order to make good literature, you have to be grounded in the real world, and bring some of that real world into the writing you do. Only then will it make an impact that will last for generations!

Rush Tree Clouds Bank Old Birds Landscape Book

Rush Tree Clouds Bank Old Birds Landscape Book

Brandy Potter www.brandypotterbooks.com

The best way I can sum up how reading inspires my life is this quote from Stephen King “Books are a uniquely portable magic.”  I have read fiction almost every day of my life. A good book can take you to a place where your mind stops and you become another person. As George R.R. Martin said, you can live a thousand lives through books. When you are troubled or stressed or depressed a good book can lift you up.

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Kim J www.writersideoflife.com

I love how we all read completely different things but, when it comes to how passionate we are about reading, it is exactly the same for all of us. I could have written any one of the above answers!

I simply can’t understand how people can not read. It is a stress release, it helps me get to sleep (as long as it’s not at the exciting part). Reading helps to understand ourselves; why we think the way we do, what others may think about us, what other scenarios may happen. Also, on a more practical note, reading about different times and places sparked my love of travel and pushed me to start writing myself.

BBH Cats Luv Coffee 5Valerie, Cats Luv Coffee www.catsluvcoffeez.blogspot.com

I just read an article that reading fiction makes people more compassionate and increases their empathy. It states that we read, we emphasize with the characters. “Without necessarily even noticing, we imagine what it’s like to be them and compare their reactions to situations with how we responded in the past, or imagine we might in the future.” (Read the full article here) It’s an interesting take and one I think rings true. People who read often immerse themselves totally in the story. We do this over and over with each character that we experience. It’s part of what I love about fiction; that it takes me outside of myself and what might be happening in my life.

 

Jo Linsdell www.JoLinsdell.com

I’ve discovered a lot about myself through reading. Books are a part of my journey to self discovery. Whether I’m reading a romance or a thriller about a serial killer, I always discover something new about myself and how I view the world. Reading shows me my own morals, and helps me get a clearer idea of how I think and feel about certain topics.

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Becki  A Book Lover’s Adventures

I find that books give so much and all they ask in return is a little of our time. For me, I think I have become a better person because of reading. Reading makes me more empathetic towards others because I’ve read about so many different life situations. I am more creative and imaginative when I read fantasy. I tend to be more adventurous and take more risks when I read about adventure and bravery. Books are part of the tapestry that makes up who I am!

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That is it for today’s Bookish Blog Hop, but be sure to check out yesterday’s offering at Lovely Audio Books.  Eline hosts a discussion on favorite book quotes!  You can find it here.  Also, stay tuned tomorrow for the next stop at Views She Writes where the topic of the day will be the worst film adaptations of books!

A BOOKISH BLOG HOP