It was Saturday night of Labor Day weekend and the last concert of the summer season in the park, in Crosslake. The evening started out warm and comfortable but as the sun dipped beneath the horizon a chill set in and many people folded their chairs and slipped away, even though the concert wasn’t over. For me it was an ominous warning that once again summer was retreating and colder weather is ahead. Oh, we might have an Indian summer yet. But it’s always been-- and at least for me, the last gasp of summer.
Labor day in Crosslake is the omega of the summer season. A time when the sounds of squeaky wheels reverberate across the lake as docks are pulled from the depths once more, to sit out the winter as silent sentinels on frozen shorelines waiting for spring to come back once more. Boats, water toys and pontoons are hidden away now under blue tarps or in dark garages and one by one the cabins are shuttered and abandoned. The town goes from bustling to a much slower pulse. Most of the planed summer’s activities have all been exhausted; the kids are back in school, the harvest is on; hunting season is right around the corner. The sign in the restaurant has been turned around 180 so it now says, “Seat yourself” and all around the many lake’s it is strangely quiet. Last summer I took a trip around the chain of lakes and marveled at the homes and cabins. I couldn’t help but think about all the memories that must have been made in those homes and all the friendships that were renewed this summer between families and neighbors, often around the beach or the fire pits over good food and drinks. God willing there will be another summer for a do over for everybody next year but for now we must wait.
I have in my house a quiet place where all of the picture albums are displayed. There was a time when we developed our pictures and put them in a book that led to many books to page through on cold and lonely nights. Twenty years full of weekends and vacations at the lake. So many of the early pictures were of our grandbabies that now have babies of their own. She was so religious about those picture albums when she was here but that’s old fashioned now as we store them in our phones or computers in somewhat of a private fashion. I often wonder if she had lived, would there have been more albums or would she have succumbed to the phone herself. There are pluses and minuses to this; the camera on the phone is always with you but for the most part, eventually the pictures are lost to the ages, never to be seen again and so those who do follow us and want to revisit our trip of happiness and tears called our life, you will have to be content with just the story.
But that is what life is all about isn’t it. You get married and settle down, raise a few kids, retire to the lake to enjoy the grandkids and then they too grow up and everybody scatters like dandelion seeds in the wind. Their world gets busier while yours gets quieter and those special times become fewer and fewer and soon there your are, all alone picking your way through those picture albums and smiling, sometimes through a tear or two while whispering to yourself, “Yes I remember that.”
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