Life at the lake is a necessary change of pace

When I was a lad about this time of year, my mother used to pack us up and head off to Grand Bend, Ontario. Grand Bend was a city that had a population of 500 in the winter and 5000 in the summer. My memories of it are almost all wonderful. I once saw a great rainstorm cut across Lake Huron cast against a full moon. I was about seven or eight at the time and can see the pictures of the rain slapping the waves in my head now.

We ate peanut butter crackers on the beach for breakfast. Once or twice, we would go into the downtown area. It was really a 2-3 block strip that ended at Lake Huron. A block before the end, however, was a wonderful penny arcade that also had Dodge-Em cars. I remember my brothers pouring in coins (probably nickels) into a bowling game to win 37 coupons, the amount needed to win a hot plate for use in our cabin. (Youngsters, ask your parents what a hot plate is. It could be used for an amazing amount of things.)

Nearly 50 years later, I still recall that my brothers and myself ran ragged all day long. What I don't recall is what Mom and her good friend Oleta "Pete" Smith, who came on these trips, usually did. I have no head picture of them all from that era.

But I know now what they did while the Wright boys frollicked.

Not much at all. And enjoyed it immensely.

This is being written on a cloudy Tuesday morning inside Cabin 8 at the Nodak Lodge in Bena, MN. It is the second year in a row we have been here. Some longtime friends of Lynne's have been summer vacationing with another family here for quite a while now. As a town, Bena makes Grand Bend look like Grand Rapids. The official population listed is 110. To the best I can tell, though, the town is simply a gas station/general store, a post office and a bar/restaurant. No arcade here.

Nodak Lodge is a simple place run by simple people. It has cabins, a small receptions area that includes one pool table, a video machine and a small area to congregate in, a swimming pool, a few campground spots and pits for fires, a basketball court and Lake Winnibigosh. Thee is an area to dock a boat if you are so inclined. Or you can rent one or a pontoon to go out on the lake.

That's it.

To a New Yorker, a Chicagoan, or a Los Angelino, that probably sounds pretty damn boring without enough to keep people interested for two days, much less a week.

To us Minnesotans, however, it offers something that is hard to find anywhere else. It is something I suspect Mom and Pete did every day in Grand Bend while the Wright boys ran around and through Lake Huron on our inner tubes and chased Shep, the dog up and down the beach for hours.

It offers serenity.

Life in Minnesota is not considered hectic at all. We're known for our laidback approach to just about every issue. The movie "Fargo" wasn't that far off the mark at all when it came to stereotyping folks around here.

But the simple fact is all that life is hectic and complicated in every city that is not the size of Bena or Grand Bend. You can't avoid it. For example, right now in Minnesota, we in the second week of a statewide shutdown caused by a lack of a state budget. The shutdown is affecting services all over the state. It occurred because the state legislature is much more interested in scoring political principles than in helping constituents.

(The shutdown even affects life at the small general store on Highway 2, roughly 7/10th of a mile from Cabin 8. One of that store's biggest sources of income is lottery sales. The lottery is one of the many state-run industries that closed during this shutdown. "People still have their habits," the clerk told me the other day. "They come in daily and ask things have changed and they can buy tickets.")

At Nodak Lodge, however, nothing has changed much. Roger and Melissa, who run the place, are about as pleasant and accommodating people as one will find in the world. I have no idea of their political or social persuasions. What's more, I don't need to know it. No, I'm here to watch Lake Winnibigosh take turns being peaceful and being majestic. (Last night, it was the latter as whitecaps, seen above, bounced to and fro. Wonderful sight.)

Life here is uncomplicated and peaceful ... and that is why we come. The coffee seems to taste better here. The food on the grill smells better. You get up when you want and you go to bed when you want. During the day, we simply have conversations with our friends, read a book while sunning at the pool, play board or card games, or (on cloudy days like today), hack away at writing. There is a TV available in the cabin if you want it (Lynne gets to catch up on shows she doesn't get to see at home because she is working). A fellow might even go out on the dock with a big cup of coffee or a stiff drink, light up a cigar and simply watch the day or night unfold.

In other words, we get to come and go and eat as we please for a week. That is about as good as it gets.

It is also necessary. You see, we are running ourselves ragged as a country. We are at constant loggerheads politically and socially. St. Paul is no New York or Detroit but, even there, people are snapping at each other over the smallest things. This kind of continual unrest cannot be good for the body or the soul. We need a break -- whether it is something as simple as putting a fishing pole in the water, golfing on a course that nobody has ever heard of or simply sitting by the bay window reading a book or working a crossword puzzle.

When you go on a vacation like this, you do the things that interest you -- not the stuff you feel you have to do. You work at pleasing yourself for a change. At Grand Bend, for example, Mom's one personal pleasure was an annual trip to Stratford to see a Shakespearean play. It was the only thing she seemed to insist on (besides making us wait an hour after eating to return to Lake Huron). And I can see the relaxed smile she had on her face as we sat in the round watching those weird costumes and trying to understand 16th century English.

Time here doesn't stop altogether -- we really don't want it to do that -- but it does go slower. There are occasional outbursts of energetic disagreement "Why did you play that card?" is a common refrain. But about the worst thing you will see is an incident like the one that happened by the pool the other day. A mother yelled at her son for committing the crime of splashing his sister. The lad, about age 9, was sent muttering to a chair for a timeout. This lasted about two minutes until the mother turned to another nearby adult and sighed, "Well, we are on vacation, aren't we?" and released the fellow from custody with the plea "Don't do it so often, please." The fellow jumped happily back in the water and was later actually seen guiding his sister around the pool. Such is the healing power of Nodak Lodge.

There is more than can be said but you get the point. It's time for another cup of barefoot coffee. The new day is dawning and today's placid, tame adventure is about to commence. Which will it be today? Do I return to my book? Do I go for an exploratory walk (Bigfoot is supposed to be around here somewhere.) ? Do we hop in the car and go to the adult version of the old penny arcade -- the casino up the road? Do we wander into Grand Rapids just to see what the hell goes on there in the summer? Or so we just sit and talk a bit about life in general or politics in particular? Or is today's task as simple as watching Mikade, the soon-to-be-three year old son of Lynne's godson Donny, as he takes on his world one pillow and toy car at a time?

At the lake, there are many options. But just about all of them are peaceful and quiet ones. It is not a life that most of us would want for 52 weeks of the year. For one week, however, it is about as heavenly as it gets.