Ten-Finger Exercises

Summer memories continued

Weeks I spent with my grandmother, Nana, in Oden were some of the best times of my life. Sometimes I had a friend with me, or my aunt and uncle would come up for a week. My parents usually came up for two weeks at the end of my month there. Even when it was just the two of us we had plenty of good fun.

Because it took a lot of teakettlefuls of water to warm a bath enough to make a tub bath tolerable, we often "bathed" in the lake (in our swimsuits.) Ivory soap floats, and the lake water was clear as could be.

Whether bathing or swimming, the protocol for afterwards was the same. We'd go to the back porch, which had a short clothesline stretched across it. There was a large lattice door on rollers, and we'd close the door and take off our suits, hang them on the clothesline and run skinny upstairs.

The upstairs, with all its exposed wood and lack of insulation, was always warm and fragrant on a hot summer day. When I first tried to imagine God in some way other than human form, my "picture" was of that closeness and warmth flooding my cool, wet skin.

The dining room of that house had fishing poles covering two walls, hanging from pegs near the ceiling. It also had an old oak music box with huge brass 'records' to play.

Underneath the stairs was the pantry. The molding of the door was the place where all the children for two generations had been duly measured, with a line marking the top of their head and their name and date. The shelves were all covered with oil cloth, and there were curtains across each shelf.

In the living room there was a built-in window seat covered with blue ruffled pillows. Tacked on the wall above it were six pages from a calendar from 1924, each with a quotation that began, "Why Worry?" I had those framed years ago, but they need an update.

The best part about the living room was that there were no ordinary chairs, only rockers. The card table was nearly always up. We played many a game of parchesi and canasta, casino, Chinese checkers and Russian Bank. There wasn't any television, and radio reception wasn't dependable. Nana and I would take the Greyhound into Petosky every week or two for library books.

The old Carnegie library had stone lions on either side of the door, and I remember sitting on one to watch the circus parade. My favorite shop in town was Andy Kan's.
It was a typical tourist spot, and I loved to look at the magic boxes, intricate wooden contraptions with hidden doors and sliding panels. They also sold Mexican jumping beans. One time mine weren't jumping much and I put the box of them on the stove to warm them up. It didn't work.

Another good thing to do was to sit out on the front porch and swing in the big white swing, watching the sunset or, in storms, the lightning, and the rain coming across the lake.

Nana always potted little forget-me-not plants in small white vases and lined the window sills with them. Outside were several large stands of tiger lilies. I liked to pick buttercups and wild flowers that grew along the creek on the walk to the post office and the little grocery. If we walked the other direction, we'd go look through the boathouse to see what wonderful boats were in.