Michigan, Again
From My Father, Myself; A Memoir
By Richard Humphries
1960
Walloon Lake was still as glass as my brotherand I each handled an oar, sitting side by side on thevarnished maple center bench of the wooden rowboat. The sun had broken as we shoved off fromshore twenty minutes earlier.My father, in a white cotton shirt, sleeves rolledup, sat on the aft bench, baiting hooks for the threeof us. “Boys, oars up. Let her drift now and we’ll getto fishing.” Dad needed to be outdoors and Michigan suitedhim just fine when I was nine, brother Jim eleven.He knew how to do everything a guy needs to knowhow to do.We caughtlake trout, perch and bluegills thatsummer at the cabin. Returning, we’d find my
mother making a pot of coffee on the wood-burningstove in the odd kitchen.Mom was a sport, a perfect parent for boys.She’d run a footrace with you.And really race you.Maybe even beat someone once or twice.We ate fried fish and eggs and potatoes forbreakfast.Behind the cabin, the earth turned to sandyloam, sprouting Birch trees with bark to unroll. Myparents were always happy and kissing each other.Jim and I sat on the wooden pier, chubby butgrowing taller, smirking at the camera.
. . .1961
A cabin paneled in knotty pine. Dad makes agreat fire in the stone fireplace as the suddensummer evening rain blows against the picturewindow.The waves lap loudly against the narrow sandbeach at the edge of the deep lakeside lawn.
. . .
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Michigan, Again
It was a good place for Fathers and Sons. And a long time ago.
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