The beginning introduction to life around Lake
Erie started on the bay side.
Sandusky Bay
Uncle Bill led the way.
He was a “seafaring” man – the best boater I’d ever seen. Thanks to him, times of riding in other
peoples boats never seemed quite good enough, or worse yet, I’d spend the
entire ride shrieking in horror. Some
boating excursions were scarier than the world’s largest rollercoaster just
across the bay.
The first campground we visited with Uncle Bill we stayed in
his camper. That place was unreal. The owners were sociable folks who’d sponsor
fish fries (backwhen perch were abundant) sometimes card tournaments, and Val
the owner who called everyone “Dickhead.”
Needless to say, Uncle Bill didn’t take a hankering to the
insulting implications of the Dickhead reference. So he migrated down the road to a different
campground where he knew the very nice owners.
That’s when my husband claimed a spot and bought a camper at Maplewood
Cove.
We evolved from there, and my husband, Larry built a park
model to specification of the building code which required a trailer frame to
be considered a temporary dwelling. This
was all a surprise one day when he was supposed to be going to the bait store
for our fishing trip planned for that morning. I heard a clanking noise coming from the entryway,
and there he was pulling that trailer frame but no minnows or night crawlers
were to be found anywhere.
Almost all the men folk around the campground chipped in for
frame construction. They were shirtless
all crowded onto the flooring deck with carpenter’s aprons and Levi
cutoffs. Womenfolk prepared food. The Amish had nothing on us.
We had a nice mild winter to work with for completing the
work. I was glad to have a blow dryer to warm up my clothes in the morning,
though. The warmer January weather
created a thick fog for me to go through and run errands as the “go fetch it”
guy. I didn’t mind the fog since no one
else was camping in January, or so I thought.
As it turns out, the campers who were owners of a mean dog
were there. Their dog was crazy mean.
Knarled teeth pressed against patio door windows as the dastardly dog flailed
itself repeatedly against the glass.
Unaware of their presence I made the go-fetch-it rounds. I carried a box of number five nails heading
to the park model site when suddenly, fangs coming from nowhere leaped out in
the fog. A horror movie scenario in real life, the canine fangs came so close
that I could smell its breath. An invisible force at the end of a leash yanked the
snarling canine back. Uttering a few
foul words, I stormed away barely catching sight of the human at the other end.
I was pale from the shocking incident, and angry as a
volcano. I returned to our already
enclosed park model camper, and slammed the door. Hissing and spatting like a cat, I issued an
evil mantra:
“I wish that dog would die.”
We left later that day heading southward to our country home
in Morrow County
Upon returning a week later, one of the owners of the mean
dog came walking by. He had come to tell
us that the dog died. Ted said the vet
was doing dental work on the dog and administered too much anesthesia.
“Don’t ever wish me dead, please,” said Larry to me
afterward. So it was a thankful event, because I get a lot more respect than I
ever did before that episode of wishing the dog dead.
Index to more Great Lakes and Surround Journal articles
Index to more Great Lakes and Surround Journal articles
