When you're a grandparent and you live on a lake in northern Michigan, summertime is filled with visits from kids, grandkids and an assortment of friends and relatives.
I'm still trying to verify why we only see them in the summer but my suspicion is that it has something to do with our winter weather.
Thankfully, our summers are filled with visits from people we love and care about. We've been enjoying this annual influx of houseguests since our permanent relocation five years ago.
When I was a child, it was my family who made their annual pilgrimage north to vacation with relatives who owned a cottage on a lake.
It's interesting how some things never change.
When repeatedly visiting a particular place year after year, traditions seem to develop. Somehow they just evolve over time. Grandchildren are especially useful in creating these rituals. They have a knack for remembering little events that become etched in their minds, which are not unlike sponges. Out of the blue, six months after their summer invasion, they will bring up an activity that us older folks had completely forgotten. Someone says, "Hey Gramps, next summer can you drag us around the lake in that tube thing that's tied behind the pontoon?"
Before you realize it, a summer tradition has begun.
One such activity involves loading the gang onto the pontoon boat, which is sometimes referred to as "the floating front porch." After a cruise around the lake, someone usually hollers out the request, "Gramps, can we go to the whippy dip?" Among our friends and repeat summer visitors, the "whippy dip" is our pet name for the local ice cream shop, otherwise known as the Fife Lake Dairy Bar.
In the early stages of this tradition, we would drive the kids into town for their ice cream fix. This was a delightful excursion but presented numerous issues involving sticky fingers and upholstery on the return journey to the cottage. I have yet to meet a child who can eat an ice cream cone without wearing at least a portion of it on his or her shirt. Sometimes this problem carries over into adulthood!
With grandparent status also comes the wisdom derived from our longevity. This enlightenment, along with a chocolate-covered back seat, gave birth to pontoon boat rides across the lake for the above-mentioned sundae or chocolate swirl ice cream cone. For fun, I sometimes do not take the most direct course in an attempt to build the anticipation within their young minds.
Eventually, we arrive at the public swimming area and beach our vessel off to the side, tie it up to the giant cottonwood tree and then wade ashore.
This adventure is usually repeated multiple times with each batch of visitors, which has given me the opportunity to meet the Dairy Bar's owners, Gloria and Randy. Over the years, I have gotten to know them and admire their dedication and hard work. They are open only during the summer months from Memorial Day until Labor Day and both are true entrepreneurs. They live in Traverse City and each day one of them travels to Fife Lake to run the shop until closing time. They do this seven days a week for the entire summer season providing a friendly greeting and a tasty treat to everyone who saunters up to their window.
I always get a bit melancholy when Labor Day sneaks up on us. I am reminded that the summer is about to end as Gloria and Randy close up shop for the fall and winter seasons. But for now summer is still young and we like to think that fall is a long way down the road.
Until then, we will be tying up to that cottonwood tree, wading ashore and walking barefooted across the hot asphalt of State Street in pursuit of a "whippy dip" with the grandkids. After everyone is full and happy, we return to the boat, wash sticky fingers in the water and head back across the lake knowing that we have created a few good memories. By the time we tie up to the dock, the sun is getting low in the west, which means that it is time for nightly baths and freshly washed pajamas. I wonder what new adventures they will dream of tonight?
Ed Hungness and his wife owned their cottage on Fife Lake for six years before moving there after his retirement in 2005. He can be reached at edhungness@yahoo.com.
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