The Water is Always Bluer on the Other Side of the Lake

What did you learn from a special summer day in your childhood?

“You mean we really get to go swimming again tonight? After supper?” I echoed my older brother’s questions to my parents, grandparents, and Aunt Marjorie.

It was one of those beautiful hot summer Minnesota lake days that go gloriously into the night.

I’m not sure what year it was, but based on my memory that I was up to my neck in our shallow waterfront when out about 15 feet from the dock, I figure that I was probably 9 years old, give or take a summer.

We had been already swimming since immediately after lunch—well, one hour after, okay 27 long, tick, tick, tick, minutes after lunch. Back then, the collective wisdom was that you should wait one hour after eating before you dipped even a toe into the lake, or you’d get cramps and drown.

But I’ll let you in on a little secret.

There were times you could nag your mom long and loud enough that she’d cave and let you go swimming only a half hour after eating, as it was that way for us that day.

And another thing. It’s funny we called it swimming. The hours of jumping off the dock over and over and over, and running, bouncing, bobbing, playing catch and tag, dunking each other, doing handstands, and having underwater tea parties on the sandy bottom took up 98% of our time in the lake.

Anyway, that evening our parents had granted the five oldest of the Stoa bunch the unusual privilege of going back into the lake after dinner. I remember the evening as clearly as I could see the glistening sand and pebbles on the bottom of Big Detroit Lake in the early 1960s.

I ran to the cottage backyard and pulled from the clothesline my still wet, not yet spider-webbed, blue with white piping one-piece swimsuit that matched my sister Connie’s red with white piping one-piece swimsuit. Connie and I had graduated from our heavy cotton, multicolor striped sun suits that tied at the top of each shoulder. We had worn the slightly bulky sun suits as swimsuits the summer when my parents were short on money, and Aunt Margie and our two Grandmas hadn’t yet dived in to immerse us in new swim apparel.

That night, I traded my comfortably dry shirt and shorts for my cold wet suit. As I changed, I heard the tinny clanging of Grandma's cottage red, blue, green, and orange metal tumblers as Mom and Aunt Margie washed the supper dishes in the extra wide—large enough to sit a small kid in it for his or her Saturday bath—cast iron kitchen sink.

Dad and Grandpa and Grandma Stoa sat outside on the stone porch that they and Uncle Art Kunert had built in 1949. The trio sipped glasses of cold—“from the land of sky blue waters, Hamm’s the beer refreshing, Hamm’s the beer refreshing,”—Hamm’s Beer and watched over their evening swimmers.

Grandpa held his old Sony transistor radio to his ear listening to a Minnesota Twins game with thrilling hits by Tony Oliva and Hammerin’ Harmon Killebrew. Ever the scientist, Grandpa was an early adopter of the 1950s invented transistor radios.

“Oh Ted, put that thing down and enjoy your grandkids,” Grandma chastised him. Grandpa widened his Norwegian crystal blue eyes, gave the three youngest non-swimming Stoas surrounding him an impish grin, made a quick clucking noise, and put the radio back to his ear.

“Hey kids, look over at the Williams Resort Beach,” Dad called out to the older bunch in the lake. His voice was happy, inspired by a summer Friday night at the lake with family old and young, and perhaps slightly by the Hamm’s the beer refreshing.

Following Dad’s instructions, we stopped splashing and watched an odd, large, convertible car carrying about eight people drive slowly down the resort lawn to the lakeshore. It stopped for a moment, and then with hollers and shrieks from its passengers, the car drove INTO the lake.

“Woo woo!” we whooped, hooted, and hollered in return as the car, now boat, motored out into the water.

By this time, Mom, Dad and Margie had run down from the porch and on to our dock so they too could wave at the people on the funny boat. The boat passengers waved back at us. My brothers and sister and I did our best to entertain them and keep their attention on us by performing flips, jumping up and down, splashing and dunking each other, and otherwise acting silly.

“Boy, I wish we could be on that thing,” I yakked once the doohickey had padaddled out of sight.

“Me too,” Connie said, shivering. Her lips had transformed from peachy rose to cool blue that nicely matched her Norwegian eyes.

“That thing was neato,” Teddy said as Danny tried to dunk him. But because Teddy was older and had spotted the potential ambush, he became the dunker not the dunkee.

Larry just bobbed on his tip toes to keep his grin and dimples above water.

“It’s called a duck boat,” Dad said. “It’s part car, part boat.”

“Kind of like when Grandpa says I’m part kid and part fish?” Connie asked. Temporarily rejuvenated, she arched backward and dove underwater without plugging her nose. Dang. I always had to plug my nose.

“I mean that it actually is half car, half boat,” Dad said. “My friend Wes told me a fella near Buck Mill built it and is giving rides on Friday and Saturday nights this summer. They start near the town beach and drive on the roads around the lakes and end the car portion of the trip right over there on White Clover Beach and the Williams’ resort. Then the guy switches something and uses it as a boat. He captains his duck boat in the lake, back to the city beach, going through the trenched opening of the sandbar that connects Big and Little Detroit Lakes.”

“So they’ll come again tomorrow night,” we lake-lustered kids squealed through chattering teeth.

“Maybe, but you’ll be too frozen to see them if you stay in the water any longer,” Mom said. “Everybody out now.”

Five sets of blueish lips marched out of the water, following Mom’s order. But the next night, we were in the lake again, waiting to see the return of the odd land and water vehicle. We repeated our displays of splashes, shouts, and frenzied hoopla as we watched the duck boat with another set of passengers and wished we could be lucky enough to get a ride on it.

We never saw the duck boat again after that weekend; Dad later said he’d heard the duck boat had sunk.

Thinking back to that magical summer weekend, I am struck with a life lesson.

As much as my siblings and I had hoped that we could get a ride on the funny boat, I'm pretty sure the funny boat high and dry passengers had wished they could be as young, athletic, and splashingly carefree as us, dancing in the lake on a beautiful summer Minnesota night.

So the lesson is not that the water is always bluer on the other side of the lake.

Rather it is, enjoy where you are, who you’re with, and what you have.

Judi Stoa's Donchyaknow Life Lessons to see and bring out the best in yourself and others

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