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Hamlin Lake
Memories
Lynn Petrak, Indian Pete Bayou
In the basement of our family
summer cottage on Indian Pete Bayou my mother hung a poster that
reads, “We don’t remember days, we remember moments.”
I suppose she found both the sentiment and the image, a
sailboat gliding off in the sunset, appropriate for the décor.
When I think of my time growing up during summers on
Hamlin
Lake, the meaning of that
simple phrase rings ever true.
I don’t recall entire vacations or even days, just the
moments that have been captured in my mind like a series of postcard
photographs.
My first memory of the cottage, and
indeed one of my very earliest recollections is running down our
weedy hill on Indian Pete Bayou into the arms of my parents.
Other snapshots of childhood are likely mundane to most but
immeasurably memorable to me:
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Hanging on for dear life and chewing nervously on a
life preserver strap during a rough ride home from a
lower lake dunes outing.
-
Running upstairs after I spotted Canadian Geese
circling near our breakwall, grabbing a loaf of
McDonald’s Bakery bread from the freezer to tear
apart and toss to a mother and her goslings,
-
Hanging around at my parent’s dock parties which
they threw as part of their “Pier Group,” watching
them and their friends swill cocktails from plastic
tumblers and begging them to give us a slice of
watermelon for a seed spitting contest at the
water’s edge.
-
Jumping out of our boat at Barnhart’s pier,
practically knocking over my siblings and father to
get to the ice cream counter first and having my
choice of the red swiveling seats.
-
Announcing to my mom that when I grew up to be a
famous novelist (I was all of 12 and quite enamored
with Laura Ingalls Wilder and Louisa May Alcott)
that my pen name would be “Lynn Hamlin,” just
because I liked the ring of it.
Today, 33 years after my parents
bought our cottage on the east side of Indian Pete Bayou, I am
trying to give my three sons their own Hamlin
Lake
moments when we are up for a few weeks every year.
I can almost spot a moment in the making like how their eyes
light up when they see their bobber pulled down and reel in a
sunfish, how they have screeched the first time they accidently fell
in the water, how we ring our lawn chairs around the fire pit and
swap scary stories about bayou creatures with a craving for
marshmallows and kindergarteners, how they can while away an
afternoon with some paintbrushes and smooth rocks, just like my
sister and I did back in the 1970’s.
That is the poignancy of Hamlin Lake
as a summer home, at least for me.
I can still walk out on the dock for the first time in the
season and take in the same scenery, more or less, that I have since
we’ve been making the trek to Ludington.
I walk down the hill barefoot and feel the soft grass, just
as silky as it was when my feet were half the size.
I can drive up after a hectic, gaudy Christmas and savor the
absolute stillness of the air and the sparkle from the blanket of
stars scattered across the ink-black sky.
On
Hamlin
Lake, time stands still at
some moments and hurtles back decades at others.
It’s the best part about the place and it is why I always
wander down to the dock one last time after the van is packed for
the season and everyone else in strapped in and ready to hit the
road. I’ll be back, I
know, but for the next ten months or so, I won’t be the same.
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